


Time Is Different Here

by empty_room



Series: Nine Lives [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Asexual Character, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Past Abuse, Science Fiction, Sex Toys, Sexual Assault, Transhumanism, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 24,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24168991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empty_room/pseuds/empty_room
Summary: Scenes from a trip to Shatterpoint Station Primary.Someone starts to learn what it is to be a person.There is a cat.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Nine Lives [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744150
Comments: 48
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

The ship was called _As Substantial As A Blade of Light, I Cut._ It seemed like a strange thing to call a ship, Kitten thought, but then he supposed that he had not seen many ships. Mostly only on entertainments that he had got to watch either with Nicias or with Lian, and this one was like none of those. He probably shouldn’t have expected it to be. Everything was less shiny and more worn and lived in.

The living quarters of the ship were smaller than half of Nicias’s apartment. The kitchen was tiny and very neat, and every shelf was stuffed with something. The water in the small bathroom was rationed, so Kitten couldn’t even take the long showers he had always liked. The workshop was filled with clutter he couldn’t even identify. The armoury door wouldn’t open for him, but he had glimpsed neatly ordered weapons and armour. The furniture in the mess was utilitarian but comfortable enough. The rec room always had someone in it. There was also another room, bright and lit up, holding mostly lamps and trays of plants, and a tank with green things growing in it. Kitten liked that room, but he didn’t know if he should be spending time in there, so he didn’t.

There were six people on the crew. None of them were Lian. The architect whose name he still didn’t know served as both the pilot and the captain. One of the engineers had examined Kitten, so that one had to be specialised in biological systems, but Kitten didn’t know what the other one was for. Ship-related things? They both shared one room with the architect. The other room was shared by Ghost and two soldiers. Kitten got told the bunk above Ghost’s was his, so now he lived there too, he supposed.

Kitten didn’t know what to do. With the departure over with, and the ship in open space, every day he only felt more and more in the way. He had a sense of vague nausea that never stopped. His stomach roiled whenever he ate. His hip hurt from where the engineer had cut into him to remove the tracking chip. It was a deep wound, so it was taking time to heal. Kitten had not realised that he could have simply asked for painkillers.

It was one of the soldiers that found him throwing up in the bathroom after yet another meal that disagreed with him.

“The ship wants to know if that is a symptom of anxiety or space-sickness?” she asked, not sounding particularly concerned by what answer he was going to give. Both were treatable.

“I don’t know,” Kitten answered, miserably.

She patted his shoulder, trying to be sympathetic but doing terribly at it. She handed him a glass of water and some pills. Better to try treating space-sickness first.

Kitten took the pills without asking about them. “Which one. Are you?” He was sure he had been introduced to her, but he had mixed it all up somehow.

“I’m Jal,” she answered. “I’ll go get Engineer Wei.”

“No, don’t-“ Kitten said. He did not want to see the engineer again, not after that swift surgery.

“I’ll get Ghost, then. He’s better at these things than me.”

Kitten did not want to see Ghost either. Ghost was scary. But then he had no choice because Jal simply left him and Ghost arrived seconds later. Ghost checked his pulse and his temperature, and then serenely watched Kitten throw up again.

“You are space-sick,” Ghost assessed. “You should have told us you are having issues.”

Kitten leaned against the wall and chewed his lip. Was that what he was meant to do? How was he meant to know that? The nausea was starting to fade as the pills took their effect.

“Do you need help?” Ghost asked.

“Why am I sick?” Kitten asked in return. He was not used to being sick.

“The functioning of the ship engines creates a disturbance that most humans cannot feel, but some people can,” Ghost said. “It usually manifests as nausea and dizziness.”

“Oh,” Kitten said. That explained a lot.

“It is likely you will get used to it.”

“Ghost?” Kitten had no idea if that was a name, or a title, or some sort of description.

“Yes?”

“I don’t know what the rules are here,” Kitten admitted.

Ghost tilted his head slightly. “You turn up to mealtimes, you make sure you are reasonably clean. That is all that is required of you.”

“I don’t have to do anything else?” Kitten asked.

“No. You are a passenger until we get you to one of our stations.”

Kitten allowed Ghost to help him stand and lead him back to the kitchen. It was empty now. He almost knelt on the floor, but Ghost caught his elbow and made him sit on the chair instead. He watched Ghost make him a hot drink with some sort of powder. It tasted sweet and made his mouth tingle and helped to settle his stomach. He sipped it very slowly, and after he was done with it, Ghost gave him tea and a couple of hard and sweet biscuits. He had to replenish fluids and fill his stomach with something.

“Ghost,” Kitten said, after he finished eating the first biscuit. Being given food made him feel better, somehow.

“Yes?”

“Am I meant to have sex with anyone?” This question had been bothering him. He didn’t know if he was for anyone’s use, but even worse, he woke up hard every time, and wanting someone to touch him. He missed Nicias. He missed Lian. He had missed them less in the cell, because in the cell he saw no one, but here there was always a person nearby, and he wondered what it would be like to have one of them take him somewhere private and tell him to take all his clothes off.

“You are not meant to do anything. But if you want to have sex, you need to ask us. It is inappropriate for any of us to proposition you.”

“What?” Kitten asked.

“You do not need me to repeat what I said,” Ghost answered. Kitten didn’t have any hearing impairments. He just needed to process that now he had to choose rather than waiting for someone to choose for him. “I have a question for you. We feel absurd calling you Kitten. Would you like for us to call you something else?”

Kitten blinked. “Huh?” he asked.

“Your owner and… Lian called you that. If you have particular sentiment attached to the word, we will accept it.” A placeholder until Kitten chose a better name, because inevitably one day Kitten would.

“What would I even pick?” Kitten asked. He _could_ choose. For the first time he could tell people what to call him, instead of the other way around. The realisation felt vast.

“Anything you like,” Ghost said, as if it was perfectly simple.

“Why are you called Ghost?” Kitten asked. Maybe knowing that would help.

“Because my full name is very long,” Ghost said. “And this one describes my function accurately enough.”

“What is your name, then?” Kitten asked. Was he allowed to ask that? He was not sure, but it didn’t look like Ghost minded questions.

“I will show you my name when you have the implants you would need to process it,” Ghost assured.

“Will I have those?” Kitten asked, taken aback with Ghost’s certainty. He wasn’t sure that he wanted implants. That would require surgeries and examinations and pain as he healed. He did not like those things.

“Probably. Most who come to us eventually choose to take them,” Ghost answered. “How about Cat? For your name. To show you are growing up.”

Kitten smiled slightly. It sounded like Ghost was teasing him. “That might be nice?” he said. Taking a suggestion was one step away from just being given a name, and he didn’t know how to just choose something himself yet. “I’ll be Cat, then,” he decided abruptly. Why not. Why shouldn’t he choose.

"Alright, Cat," Ghost answered, with the smallest of smiles in return.


	2. Chapter 2

Cat sat in the kitchen, watching Enny look through the ingredients to decide what to have for dinner. She had explained that her name was actually Ennoia, but that no one used that anymore except Jal when she was angry. She liked to talk about Jal. It seemed like they had known each other for a very long time, much longer than his whole lifetime. It was a jarring sense of perspective.

He wondered what it was like to be a soldier. She moved with such assurance, and he liked her body too, all hard muscle. She hadn’t been built to be tall, but she was solid and compact and he was quite sure she could kill a person with a single blow. He did not want to give her cause to ever hit him. He knew only the vaguest things about soldier constructs, that they weren’t meant to be smart and should only follow orders. But he was also meant to be stupid and obedient. He wondered at how freely she moved around, opening a packet of biscuits without asking anyone. The ship was her home, and it wasn’t his.

She put the packet of biscuits in front of him and he wanted to cry, but he took one and ate it very slowly, breaking it into small pieces and covering the table with crumbs. She gave him tea to drink too, not asking which one he wanted because the one time she had asked he had stared at her, paralysed. He did not know whether he was allowed to take a second biscuit, or if he was meant to only take one, and this dilemma occupied him for what felt like forever. She took no note of his problems, laying out the ingredients she had picked: dried mushrooms, some fresh greens, some sort of grain that she put to cook first. Cat had never seen it before, but he was learning that he hadn’t seen many things. He wondered what it tasted like. It wasn’t smelling very appealing so far.

When the engineer came to help with dinner, Cat slunk out. Behind him he heard Enny complain that Wei had scared him off, and then the door slid shut and cut the conversation off. He knew he was being skittish, but he did not like Wei. They seemed cold and looked at him like he was nothing except a problem to solve. But out of the kitchen, he didn’t know where to go. The ship was too small, and there was nowhere to hide. His room in Nicias’s apartment had never been truly private, but he missed it now. He had always been able to get a little break in it.

He paused at the open armoury door. He tried to be sneaky about looking in, but Ghost caught him immediately. Ghost didn’t seem to need to actually look at things to notice them. It was a little creepy.

“You can come in, Cat,” Ghost said.

Cat hesitated, unsure of what this meant. Was this a choice? It did not sound like Ghost was telling what to do, just what was possible. He hovered in the doorway for seconds, and then he came in, looking around. Everything was neatly put away or strapped down. Ghost’s tools were fanned out on the table as he worked on a weapon. Cat looked at that, wandering over to see, but then he did not know what to do once he was there. He folded his knees and sank to the floor, feeling Ghost’s gaze on him all the way down.

“What are you doing there?” Ghost asked, very mildly, like this was some sort of lesson.

Cat leaned his forehead against Ghost’s thigh. Ghost was in charge of him, right?

“Are you trying to ask me for something?” Ghost said.

Cat frowned, hating the way that Ghost was making him say it. “I want. Can you.” He paused, then tried again, “Do you want to have sex with me?”

“Not particularly,” Ghost said, and Cat felt something cold go all the way through him. “Wei would fuck you if you asked.” Jal and Enny were both too wrapped up in each other to want a third. Morning was quite definitely asexual. Ritika was not interested in men, and Cat was close enough to being a man for Ritika’s tastes.

Cat did not want to talk to the engineer, let alone make this request. He only thought of the examination, of being naked in front of Wei, of how it had felt when Wei had cut into him to remove the tracking chip. He hadn’t felt any pain, but he had still felt the blade cut in, weird and dull, and the way the medical tools had pulled on something inside. Wei had given him the chip after, deactivated, and Cat had looked over it, seeing the serial code in tiny numbers and letters. It was still under his pillow.

“Do you not like me?” Cat asked Ghost.

“I like you fine,” Ghost said. “I just do not want to have sex with you.”

Cat’s shoulders shook, and Ghost placed his palm on the back of Cat’s neck, massaging gently until Cat’s shoulders loosened again. It felt like it took an eternity, but the contact helped. Cat wondered how Ghost knew exactly how to touch him.

“You should sit on a chair, and we can talk about what you need,” Ghost said.

Cat sniffled. Very slowly, got he got up and sat on the other chair, pulling it in close to Ghost.

“You miss being touched. I can do that,” Ghost said. “But if sex is what you want, I will not do that. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Cat said.

“No,” Ghost said. He did not want Cat to get in the habit of using such an antiquated title. “Do not call me ‘sir’.”

“Yes, Ghost,” Cat corrected.

“Good,” Ghost said. A name was the only thing that should be used between them.

“Can I,” Cat said, hesitant. “Can I sleep next to you?” Perhaps that counted towards the touch that Ghost was willing to give.

“You are aware that on my current cycle I need about four hours of sleep, whereas you need a minimum of twelve?”

“Um,” Cat said. That seemed like a big difference. It was not a no, though. “For a bit, then?”

“For a bit,” Ghost accepted, studying Cat.

Cat watched as Ghost went back to work, wondering what it was like to have a weapon like that. Was it hard to use? However, it was also quite dull to watch Ghost adjusting something very carefully for longer than a few minutes. After a while he dozed off, head on the table, and woke up only when Ghost prodded him to come to dinner. Later, he got into Ghost’s bunk, hoping for more, but Ghost simply put an arm around him and stroked his back until he fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Ghost woke with Cat’s hard-on pressed against his hip and Cat’s nose against his jaw. Each of Cat’s breaths tickled across his neck. He had not woken up like this for a very long time. He exhaled slowly, taking a moment to enjoy the warmth of Cat’s body. Then he disentangled himself gently, giving Cat a pillow to cuddle instead. Cat was adorable, but Ghost knew that it was unwise to take up the obvious offer. In the long term, Cat would regret such a relationship with the first authority figure that showed an interest.

Ghost tucked the covers around Cat and got dressed without turning any lights on. He did not want to wake anyone else up, but he could sense the flicker run through Jal’s implants as she heard him. She rolled over and blinked at him, and then closed her eyes again. If she cared what he was doing, she would have pinged him.

He had agreed to a morning appointment with Wei, so he went there first. In the maintenance room, he stripped again, yawning. Wei handed him a pillow to stick under his head as he settled on the examination table on his stomach. Wei lightly rapped knuckles against the plating over Ghost’s spine when he was ready and with a sigh Ghost relaxed his shoulders and let it all unlock.

“Did you see the analysis?” Ghost asked.

“Yes, I looked at it when you sent it over. I still think you are worrying too much,” Wei answered. “This could simply be variance, not a performance issue.” But Wei was still willing enough to perform the checks Ghost wanted. Wei knew that Ghost’s software was complicated and didn’t always interact correctly with the hardware. It was better to indulge Ghost and have too many check-ups than have a dangerous system error when it could be deadly.

Ghost relaxed under Wei’s hands, shifting whenever Wei prodded him to move. Wei was an excellent engineer, with a light touch and the proper amount of care. Eventually Ghost was convinced his set of poor scores in training simulations really was only due to variance, that everything was functioning as it should. Wei tapped the plating over Ghost’s hips lightly, and Ghost opened his eyes.

“Are you sure you aren’t just stressed about going home?” Wei asked.

Ghost snorted with disbelief.

“It has been a long time, especially for you,” Wei said, touching the plating on Ghost’s back. Soon, it would need replacing. The composites had taken damage in some of Ghost’s combat missions. There was a dent that would compromise full structural integrity and definitely needed to be fixed in a proper lab.

“I want to be home,” Ghost answered.

“You are sure you are not worried about all the work that you want done?” Wei questioned.

Ghost laughed. “No. I look forward to it. What do you think, should I get something more decorative next time for my external parts?” His current plating was a matt black, built to repel scanning attempts. It was not pretty.

“You don’t have to wait for that, you know. Want me to polish you up now? Add some filigree?” Wei joked.

It was a terrible joke, and Ghost always ignored Wei’s terrible jokes. Instead, he asked, “Can I have your advice?”

“Of course,” Wei said, stroking the spot where Ghost’s skin joined the plating just above the hip. Ghost always healed well, and his skin was smooth and coppery brown.

“What do you think about Cat?”

Wei looked up the ship’s collection of data on Cat and took a few moments to process it. “He seems to be having an atypical reaction for someone of his class. He is adjusting remarkably poorly. I would attribute this to trauma.”

“Atypical?”

“Yes,” Wei said. “I would expect for him to get used to a new situation much faster. But he has only had one previous owner, our infiltrator did a number on his head, and then he spent over a month in a cell without sufficient human contact.”

“He wants to have sex with me,” Ghost said, sitting up slowly and stretching.

“Of course. You have anatomy he likes, and you have allowed him to have close physical contact with you. It is likely he has a high sex drive that currently has no outlet.”

“You think he has a sexual preference?” Ghost asked.

“They usually do,” Wei said, amused. “But they usually do not have much opportunity to express it. Alternatively, he might just be more accustomed to men and want something familiar. I don’t know. Do you want to have sex with him?”

Ghost shrugged. “It felt very nice when I woke up with him glued to my side. But he is not… To my taste.”

“I understand,” Wei said. No one had been to Ghost’s taste for decades. It seemed unlikely to change anytime soon.

“I told him you would be interested, but he seems to find you terrifying,” Ghost said.

“I suppose he has not had good experience of engineers,” Wei answered. “They rarely do. Many think that it’s not worth bothering with the niceties with those types. Just fix them and send them back to whoever owns them. Unfortunately, I made an error in not taking the time to properly reassure him.”

“You did not really have the time,” Ghost pointed out. “Our architect said that chip needed to be out before we left the docking bay.”

“Perhaps I should have ignored that,” Wei said. “I assumed he would be more resilient.”

“What would you advise me to do?” Ghost asked. He was used to soldiers that were already trained and that wanted to be under his command. Cat was just throwing himself at Ghost because he was the nearest available authority figure. It was more responsibility than Ghost wanted, but no one else was going to deal with it. Morning was the only one who could, but Morning would not disengage their mind from the ship’s while they were in transit.

“Buy him a hamster and some sex toys when we dock next.”

“What?”

“He will try to hump you less if he can at least somewhat satisfy himself. It will not be perfect, but it will probably help,” Wei said. “And it would be good for him to have something fuzzy to pet and look after. The ship does not object to small animals. We cannot fix him here, but we should try to make things more pleasant for him until we get home.”

“The ship does not mind small animals, huh?” Ghost said thoughtfully. How did Wei know that? But Wei was the one of them that had spent the longest with _As Substantial As A Blade of Light, I Cut._

“It might also be helpful to give him minor tasks to complete, to keep him busy during his awake hours. For now, he seems to mostly be napping, and I do not think that is healthy.”

“I see,” Ghost said, thinking about that. He could tell Jal and Enny to delegate some tasks to Cat. They could do a little babysitting.

“Do you want me to pay more attention and try to provide a more detailed analysis?”

“No,” Ghost said. “That will not be necessary.”

“Good.” It would have been outside Wei’s direct expertise to try to analyse Cat in that way, and he would not have been sure of his results. “Now could you put your clothes back on and go make breakfast?”

“Are you trying to order me around?” Ghost asked, with a small snort.

“Well, I can’t make breakfast, I need to check on our architect. But I would really like to eat when I am done,” Wei said. “Put less salt in the porridge this time.”

Ghost put his clothes on, and just like that, they were back to their usual routines.


	4. Chapter 4

“The ship wants me to ask you if you want to go out,” Ghost asked, finding Cat alone in the rec room.

The ship had docked with a major station for both resupply purposes and for Morning to make contact with a local agent, and most of them had some free time. Everyone except Cat already had their usual routine. Jal and Enny had already disappeared into one of the cheaper entertainment districts, probably to alternate recreational drugs with live shows. Morning had left to meet with their agent and would likely remain there for as long as the ship was docked. Both Wei and Ritika found it uncomfortable to be out of the ship’s network for long, and they would not want to leave it much. Usually, Ghost spent some time being a tourist, but now he might have to spend it watching Cat instead. They were all sure that Cat could not be permitted to wander off the ship alone, but also that he shouldn’t be cooped up on it.

Cat considered Ghost’s words, frowning. Finally, he figured out what was bothering him and asked, “Why do you say that the ship wants to know?”

“Because this ship is nosy and likes knowing what we are doing and why,” Ghost answered. Did Cat not realise that ship was a person?

“Does it?” Cat said. He looked so amazed that Ghost saw that Cat had indeed not realised. Fortunately, from the faint wash of emotion through the network, the ship seemed amused rather than offended.

“We have to be entertaining or it will kill us all,” Ghost joked. Cat’s eyes were so wide that Ghost felt a little bad. “It doesn’t do that anymore,” he assured, which only made Cat look more horrified. It was adorable. “Come on. Come onto the station with me.”

Cat decided to obey, standing up from the chair. Ghost shepherded him back to the bedroom to get changed, telling Cat which clothes to take out of the small pile he had been given. Long trousers, a long-sleeved top, a jacket with pockets. They were simple, practical clothes.

“Put on socks too. And shoes,” Ghost reminded.

Cat was still not used to shoes, but he had been given cloth shoes with a soft sole that were just comfortable enough. They were the ones he always picked up when told to put shoes on. Ghost would have preferred if Cat wore boots, but he would take what he got for now.

Once Ghost was sure Cat was dressed correctly, he picked up the weapons he was permitted to carry in the station and shrugged on his coat, heavy with the armouring concealed in the layers of cloth. He did not expect anyone to shoot at him, but it was best to always look like someone not to be messed with.

“Come on,” Ghost said, and Cat followed.

Cat hesitated for a moment in the airlock, and shook his head slightly at the gravity shift, puzzled. Getting out into the docks was fine. It wasn’t particularly busy, just the occasional person either walking or moving with purpose. As they got onto the busier thoroughfares, Cat pressed closer and closer to Ghost. He did not want to touch Ghost without permission, but there were far too many people. Cat had never been in crowds. 

“Come on. It’s fine,” Ghost assured, when he thought that Cat was likely to feel overwhelmed. “Hold onto my arm,” he said, putting Cat’s hand onto his forearm.

“What if I get lost?” Cat asked, worried, his grip on Ghost’s arm nervous and tight.

“You will not get lost, you are with me. And even if you did get lost, I would find you,” Ghost said.

“Would you?” Cat asked, obviously seeking more reassurance.

“Yes. I was instructed to look after you,” Ghost answered, keeping his tone calm and even. Cat responded well to that.

Ghost knew that Cat would not tolerate a long walk. Cat was unused to walking in shoes and uncomfortable with the whole situation, keeping his eyes down and clinging to Ghost’s arm. He did not like making eye contact with strangers at all. Ghost pinged the station network with a query for any nearby restaurants that were both quiet and unlikely to poison them. He picked the closest one and veered in that direction. Cat’s grip did not loosen as he negotiated for a little table in a corner.

Cat sat down where he was told to and when Ghost sat down opposite, he flicked through the menu screen, frowning.

“You can have anything you like,” Ghost said, then remembered that the problem was that Cat couldn’t read. He flicked through the language settings until he found the version of the menu that was just pictures and prices. It did not seem to help.

“You should pick,” Cat said, sounding lost.

It did not take long for Ghost to realise that Cat wasn’t being difficult on purpose: he seemed to genuinely have no idea how to make a choice. He had no idea what he wanted. Ghost eventually ordered a set meal for two consisting of multiple dishes. Cat seemed immediately happier as soon as there was no longer any need for him to make a decision. They would need to work on that.

Cat watched the restaurant as they waited for the food to arrive, looking nervous. On anyone else, it would have looked like Cat was about to bolt, but Ghost knew that he was the only safe thing here. Cat would not want to move far from him. At least when the first dishes arrived, Cat was distracted from fretting.

It turned out that Cat was not keen on soup, but was captivated by fried little triangles of pastry filled with vegetables. The noodles managed to be both too salty and too spicy, but Cat was fascinated enough by that to enjoy them anyway. He liked dumplings so much that Ghost ordered extra ones, just to watch Cat’s face as he tried all the different combinations of vegetables and spices. Mostly it appeared that Cat liked things that were fried until very crispy. Ghost wondered if that was a novel texture for him.

“Ghost, can I ask you questions?” Cat asked, clearly in a more confident mood after being fed interesting food. That was worth knowing. 

“Yes,” Ghost answered. “Whatever questions you like.”

“Why are people looking at us so much?” Cat asked.

“It looks a lot like I stole you,” Ghost answered lightly. Cat blinked in bafflement. “Things like you are usually either owned by very rich people or are very expensive prostitutes.”

Cat might have been dressed in boring, plain colours, but he was still radiant. His skin was finer than anyone else’s in here, his hair shinier and smoother. Cat was slight and attractive and very graceful, even in ill-fitting clothes and bad shoes. But it was not just Cat’s appearance – it was also the mannerisms. The way that he sat very neatly to try to not take up too much space. How attentively he looked at Ghost. How warily he kept away from other people.

Ghost continued, “And things like me are usually weapons for hire.” Ghost knew what he looked like. He looked like a well-paid mercenary, but he still wouldn’t look like someone able to afford Cat’s company.

“Ghost, who owns me now?” Cat asked abruptly, frowning. “Is it the architect?”

“No one owns you now,” Ghost said.

Cat stared, expression blank and then horrified for just a moment before Cat managed to hide it. “But who will look after me?” he asked, very quiet.

“We will look after you for now,” Ghost assured. Cat would need to learn to look after himself. It would take time.

“What will happen to me?” Cat asked. He had not been truly worried until the moment that he had found out no one owned him.

“Nothing bad. When we get home, we will find out what you are good at and what you want to learn, and we will work out how you will be the most useful to our conclave.”

“But what if I’m useless?” Cat said, thinking of how Ghost didn’t want to fuck him. If he wasn’t for that, then he wasn’t for anything.

“No one is useless. But it is sometimes more difficult to find what a person is suited for,” Ghost accepted. He was sure that Cat would not have trouble, even if Cat didn’t know that yet.

“What are you for?” Cat asked. He was far better at asking questions these days.

“I am a specialised type of combat engineer,” Ghost answered readily. “Mostly I break into places and hack their security systems.” It was the simplest explanation he could give, and the only one that Cat was likely to understand.

Cat frowned, thinking about the answer he had been given. “What are Jal and Enny?” he asked.

“They are soldiers tuned to each other. It makes them work better together.”

“Did they want that?” Cat asked curiously.

“Yes,” Ghost said. “They are very good at their work.”

“Why is the ship called _As Substantial As A Blade of Light, I Cut_?”

“Because it wanted to be.”

Cat seemed perplexed by that. “Why is the architect called Last Stars of the Morning?”

“It is a summary of their full name. We usually just call them Morning. You can too.” Ghost would answer all the questions patiently. Cat was afraid and trying to understand his place in this world.

“Oh.”

Ghost noted that Cat did not ask about either of the engineers. Uncomfortable with them. Wei had been right.

“Am I valuable?” Cat asked.

“Yes.”

“And you will look after me?”

“I will.”

Cat looked marginally reassured. But then the sorbet arrived, and Cat looked immediately happier, even though it was all synthetic flavouring and excessive sweetener. 

“Would you like my dessert too?” Ghost offered. When Cat looked paralysed at the idea of expressing a desire, Ghost simply pushed it over. “Finish that, and then we will walk back.”


	5. Chapter 5

Ghost had commanded Jal to take Cat out for lunch this time. She had objected, of course, because her purpose was not babysitting and she had expected to have free time for herself this afternoon, but Ghost had been unmovable. She roped Enny in too, because she had no idea how to deal with the way Cat stared at her, looking like he was half afraid she might hit him. He did not seem to know what clothes he needed to wear, and that was simply infuriating. Enny just gave him things to put on, rolling her eyes at Jal’s expression.

Eventually they were ready. Enny steered Cat out into the docks. Jal walked on Cat’s other side. She noticed him take hold of Enny’s sleeve, but neither of them said anything. Ghost had warned that he was nervous in crowds and in open spaces.

 _What do we do with him??_ Jal sent over.

 _Get him high and drunk?_ Enny answered. She synced with the station network and then fielded gentle pings from other soldiers in the docks. Mostly they were owned by various private security entities, and all they wanted to say hello and that they weren’t hostile either. Friendly enough unless their controllers commanded otherwise.

 _Ghost said we’re not allowed to do that._ He knew them annoyingly well. Out loud, Jal said, “Do you want noodles?”

 _You know questions like that confuse him_ , Enny sent, once the pause got awkward.

“Let’s go have noodles,” Jal said brightly. Someone had to make a decision, and it might as well be her.

Cat smiled at her, glad that he hadn’t failed somehow.

“Did your owner ever take you travelling?” Jal asked.

“No,” Cat answered, with a curious pause where he managed not to say any sort of honorific. This was progress.

“How boring for you,” Jal said.

Cat frowned slightly. “It wasn’t that boring,” he said, though it was. He had spent years never stepping out of the apartment other than when he was taken for check ups or treatment. He had spent so many days with nothing to do other than wonder when Nicias would come home. 

“Did he ever take you anywhere?” Enny asked. She had survived enough contracts involving rich idiots to have seen that some owners loved to show off their property. She did not know what happened in private, though.

“No,” Cat said, answering more easily. He was more comfortable talking to Enny than to Jal.

“What did you do all the time?” Jal asked, and then winced as Enny did the equivalent of kicking her in the shin through their network.

 _What did you do all day before you joined Shatterpoint?_ Enny asked, a little sharply.

 _Good point._ “Never mind,” Jal said, before Cat had any time to try replying.

Enny took Cat’s arm gently and tugged him into the less crowded section of the walkway. Jal seamlessly followed, keeping the exact same gap between them. He wanted them close because he knew who they were, and neither of them minded giving him that.

“Do you want to see out?” Jal asked.

“Out?” Cat asked, not understanding the question.

“This station orbits a red giant. It is a major trade hub for this section of space,” Jal said, while Enny was veering towards one of the viewpoints. There were plenty of tourists gawping, but the crowd shifted to make space when people noticed two soldiers. No one wanted to stand too close by accident. Who knew really what their combat responses were triggered by.

“This really is a window,” Jal said. “It’s why everyone loves to stare through it.” A display could show more information, in a way that easier to process, but windows always had a psychological effect that she could appreciate, even if a part of her always wanted to scream that it was a structural weakness large enough to put a missile through.

Cat took a step towards the window, fascinated. The glass was a complex composite with filters to cut out the harmful radiation and enough of a screen overlay to clarify and focus the image. The view couldn’t be more perfect – dark specks of ships moving across the backdrop of the vastness of the star.

 _If he's staring at this like that, what’s he going to do when he sees the anomaly back home?_ Jal asked, watching Cat press his face against the glass.

 _Maybe he’ll come in his pants?_ Enny answered, more interested in chatting to a private security construct that was wondering why they were guarding a unit designated for leisure. She gave the usual spiel about an eccentric client and prodded for information about the station in return.

“What is that?” Cat asked.

“That is a Federation dreadnought,” Enny answered, glancing at the vast ship that Cat was referring to.

“It’s so big,” Cat said.

“Yes, that is the point of a dreadnought,” Enny said.

“What is on them?” Cat asked.

“Uh, soldiers in storage. Human troops. Supplies. Weapons. Small gunships,” Enny said, shrugging. She did not want to go into explaining the full capacities of huge warships. She had tried to explain things to Cat before, but this often got bogged down in definitions of terms and she struggled with those.

“Soldiers in storage?” Cat asked.

“It’s where they give you stasis drugs, shove you in a tank, and only wake you up for maintenance and when they need you to shoot at people,” Jal answered, with a false lightness.

“Oh,” Cat said. “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

 _Did he really just say that?_ Jal sent.

Enny let Jal know she was struggling not to laugh. “It isn’t,” she said. Cat’s vocabulary was sometimes woefully lacking. Sometimes it was depressing. Sometimes it was hilarious. In either case, it was fortunate that Enny was good at keeping a straight face.

“You are a soldier,” Cat said.

“Yes…” Jal answered, wondering what that statement was going to lead to.

“Do people do that to you?” Cat asked.

 _What do I say???_ Jal asked.

_Just tell him._

“Not anymore,” Jal said. “They used to. Many people think that we are just equipment.”

“Oh,” Cat said, very quietly.

“Let’s go, I’m hungry,” Enny said, pulling Cat away from the window. The noodle shop wasn’t far away. Enny ordered for Cat when they sat down at a table she thought had the best tactical position, while Jal concentrated on picking side dishes. Lots of little pickles sounded like a great idea to her. Cat seemed to be relaxed when flanked on both sides. Enny supposed he must feel protected. It was kind of sweet.

“What is it like to be a soldier?”

Jal frowned. “What is it like to be you?” she asked in return.

“Okay, I suppose?” Cat said, thrown off his inquiry. He got the hint from her body language and didn’t ask again, closing in on himself.

 _That was mean._ Enny commented. _You intimidated him for no reason._

_That question was stupid._

The noodles arrived in a steaming soup and Jal started eating quickly. It took a good few minutes for Enny to notice that Cat was doing nothing more than picking the occasional noodle or vegetable out of the soup.

“You don’t like this?” Enny asked. His appetite was usually good.

“No, it’s-“ Cat began.

 _He doesn’t like it._ Jal commented on their private channel.

 _I know, you ass._ “It is okay for you to not like things,” Enny assured. “We can get you something else.”

“No,” Cat said. “I’ll eat a little more, it’s okay.” He did not want to inconvenience them.

Jal ordered another of the side dish that Cat had eaten. _This is the problem when he doesn’t want to tell us what he wants or what he likes,_ she grumbled, as Cat ate the little pieces of chopped and grilled vegetables and ignored the soup.

“Do you like pancakes?” Enny asked him.

“Yes,” Cat said. That, at least, was an easy question. He did, and he thought that she was hoping he did.

“We’ll go have pancakes, okay?”

 _Why are you being so nice to him? He’s so annoying._ Jal asked.

 _You’re just jealous he is a spoiled brat._ Enny answered. Cat had been spoiled, compared to them, living in a nice place and eating nice food, and never getting shot at. It would have been easy to resent his pleasant state of ignorance.

“Okay,” Cat answered.

Jal finished his noodles – there was at least one benefit to his pickiness – and once they were all done, Enny found them a place to eat sweet pancakes with real fruit. It was absurd how much that seemed to cheer him up, and how he seemed to forget entirely that Jal had been mean to him.


	6. Chapter 6

Ghost had left Jal to take Cat out for lunch. She would look after him well. She would be grumpy, no doubt, but he had given thorough instructions and he was certain that she would follow them. Cat was highly unlikely to make any trouble or cause any scenes, which was both a good and a terrible thing. At least it meant that Ghost could have some time for himself.

Cat was exhausting, though Ghost knew that was not Cat’s fault. Cat had been trained to identify the person in charge and do his best to please them, whoever they were. It was simply unfortunate that almost everything Cat had been trained to do did not please him. He did not want a pet, he did not want sex, and he did not want the sort of intimacy Cat would offer. Cat was sensuous and lovely, of course, and Ghost’s human parts responded to all the physical stimuli, but Cat had no network presence. There was nothing Ghost could sync with, and the most insight he could have into Cat’s head was from looking at his face. He was no longer used to that.

Walking alone with his own thoughts, Ghost unfurled his mind into the local network. Most of the traffic consisted of the station’s AI maintenance systems chatting to each other, with more complex presences deeper in the station. There was human traffic of messages and shared files, then the minor interactions of lower-order constructs. There were a lot of soldiers on the station, but they seemed to have mostly corporate handlers. Private entities were nervous, but there was no military presence yet.

 _Not caved to the Federation yet, then?_ Last Stars of the Morning sent him, and Ghost almost flinched in the middle of a crowd. He had thought only the ship was riding his connection. He had not realised it was relaying his analysis to the architect.

 _I give this place a year maximum before it is under occupation. There is already a dreadnought in the system._ Ghost answered.

 _Yes. We will not be able to pass through here again._ There was a weird sort of sorrow appended to the message that Morning would not be feeling. That must have been the ship.

Ghost sent a request for a shopping list back, and busied himself with that. The ship wanted new parts. Wei wanted to fill small gaps in their medical supplies. Most important was to haggle for fresh food, because while the ship could feed them on mushrooms and algae forever, no one wanted to survive on that. He paid through the nose for actual fish, station-cultivated, and he hoped it was good or he would never hear the end of it.

Then there was the shopping that entertained him. He browsed weapons and ammunition. The best armour on sale was less advanced than his own, but there were always interesting things that could be found. There were antique guns, entirely useless now other than for showing off wealth. He examined knives, the most expensive made from khaytni glass. Impractical showpieces.

Slowly, he wound his way around to visiting a sex shop. He had no idea what Cat would like, so on the advice of the staff he bought a small collection: a masturbation sleeve, a vibrator he was assured was excellent, a medium-sized dildo, a prostate massager, lube, a couple of different butt plugs. Cat was bound to like at least some of those things, but Ghost couldn’t imagine using any of them himself. His desire for sex had never been strong, and without a partner he seemed to lack it entirely.

It was more interesting to shop for pets. He had never bought animals before or had any cause to look after them. He did not realise how many strong opinions he had on this issue. He was not going to buy a fish, because fish were food. He was not going to buy some sort of weird plant that moved too much to actually be a plant. Lizards, no. Rabbits ate their own shit. Mice seemed pathetically small. Rats had weird tails. Hamsters were absurd looking animals. Dogs were too big. He could not choose birds because Morning reminded him that might make Cat think too much about the past.

Eventually, he ended up answering questions about what he intended to do with a cat. He had found one that looked like nothing special, a small grey and black striped thing with short fur that was the friendliest one in the shop. It seemed like it was the best bet, because it was the only one that let him pick it up a minute after he had met it. He had to assure the staff that he did not require certification that he was permitted to keep an animal, because he was taking it on a ship. Some of them seemed suspicious, but he had the money for the animal and some toys and the right sort of food, and so eventually he left with the cat in a carrier. What did people think? That machinists ate small animals for fun? The whole interaction had aggravated him.

As soon as Ghost stepped onto the ship, he felt the ship picking over his mood and its vague interest in his shopping. It did not disapprove. A cat was small enough. He took everything to the rec room, putting out everything necessary for the animal and then opening the carrier. He sat very still on the floor and waited until the cat came out to explore, to say hello to him.

_A cat for Cat. That is cute._

Ghost smiled. Morning must have been back on board because they and the ship were so entwined that it was hard to know which one of them had put the thoughts in his head. _Wei said I should try getting him something fuzzy._

_Wei told you to get a hamster._

Ghost held out a treat for the cat. _They told me hamsters only live for two years, and I think he should have something longer term._

 _I hope you paid for that out of your personal funds._ Keeping unnecessary animals was an expensive luxury, and Morning could not condone it. _What will you do if he doesn’t want it?_

_If he does not want it, I am keeping it._

_I thought you were too old to get sentimental._

_Being an antique unfortunately makes me more sentimental,_ Ghost sent, stroking the cat lightly. He felt Morning’s thoughts shifting again, interest lost as something happened elsewhere. Morning was deliberately unfocused while there was nothing to do and the ship was docked. Relaxing as much as it was possible for them to be.

When Enny and Jal returned with Cat, she crooned over the animal. Jal accidentally scared it when she tried to pick it up. They both disappeared into the bedroom to spend quality time together, leaving Cat with Ghost. Cat stared in utter fascination at the animal, waiting for it to come out again from under the furniture.

“It is for you,” Ghost said, and he had to repeat the message a few times before it really sunk in. “You should name her.” So long as Cat didn’t name her Cat, it wouldn’t be too confusing. Ghost watched with amusement as Cat offered her a treat and then so very cautiously reached out to touch her.

“How do I look after her?” Cat asked, and he sounded so terrified of fucking it up that Ghost almost laughed. He still did not really believe that the pet was for him.

“We will work it out,” Ghost answered.


	7. Chapter 7

The cat had tired herself out and hidden back in the carrier, to sleep on the familiar blanket. It was time for dinner, so Ghost tugged Cat up and to the kitchen. They had takeout from one of the dockside restaurants, rice cooked in a broth with plenty of spices and vegetables. Everyone served themselves. Wei took a portion to Morning. Ritika joined them for a little while, until it was time to start departure preparations. Jal and Enny sat together, not talking out loud, but Ghost could see that they were chatting in the network. It would have been easy for him to snoop, but he had always thought that his soldiers had the right to private conversations.

Cat was the only one that worried Ghost. He sat alone in one corner, eating quietly. He seemed to find mealtimes difficult. Enny had asked him once and found out that he almost always used to eat alone, unless it was some sort of treat. Sitting with people was hard. Eating in front of people was hard. Contributing anything to the occasion was entirely impossible.

Ghost watched Cat, pondering other things: how Cat ate exactly what he was given, and never took more unless he was specifically asked if he wanted it, how awkwardly he used cutlery. He made sure to finish eating after Cat, because he had noticed that Cat tended to stop eating when he did.

“I have something else for you,” Ghost said, once the dinner was done with, and all the plates were in the dishwasher. “Come with me.”

Cat stood up immediately, as fast as Enny or Jal would obey him on mission. Ghost almost sighed. He led Cat to their bedroom – it was a mess entirely caused by Jal, of course, so he shoved Jal’s clothes onto her bed. Jal loved making a mess because she could, now. In contrast, Enny’s belonging were always neat and ordered. Cat didn’t have enough things yet to make a mess with, and Ghost wondered if he would be more like Jal or more like Enny.

Cat hovered behind Ghost, expectant. Being taken to the bedroom would have meant more elsewhere.

Ghost picked up a shopping bag and handed it to Cat, without much ceremony. “I am aware that you have physical needs, and it has been suggested to me that you need a way of relieving them before you get too frustrated.”

Cat looked perplexed. Then he realised that he was meant to look in the bag, and looked only more puzzled when he did. He examined the things in it slowly because he knew he needed to react to this correctly and he didn’t know how to do that yet. All the items seemed good quality. A dildo. Butt plugs. A vibrator. He stopped there.

“I don’t understand,” Cat said, going with the truth. That was probably safe. Ghost didn’t mind when he didn’t understand things.

“You know how to use sex toys,” Ghost stated.

“Of course, Ghost,” Cat said, making the name sound exactly like ‘sir’.

“So what don’t you understand?”

“Do you want to use these things on me?” Cat asked, quietly. He had thought that Ghost didn’t want to have sex with him. He didn’t know whether to be disappointed that Ghost had lied to him about not wanting to fuck him or whether to be happy that Ghost did seem interested. Both at once, maybe?

“No, they are for you,” Ghost stated. Now he realised that this was going to be confusing. He had thought that this would be simpler.

“Who will use these on me?” Cat asked, more wary, something disappointed in his voice.

“They are for you, to use alone. If you want to,” Ghost said, like this should have been perfectly obvious. Now he was learning that it was not obvious at all.

“Oh,” Cat said.

Ghost did not understand Cat’s tone. “If you do not want them, then you can throw them away.” The ship would recycle the materials.

“No,” Cat said. He would not throw them away, but his expression was closed. He looked at the floor.

“Have you used sex toys before?” Ghost asked.

“Yes,” Cat said, frowning at Ghost. On some things Ghost seemed to know nothing. “To prepare myself, sometimes. And if someone wanted to.”

Ghost thought he hid his expression of distaste well, but he saw Cat’s expression sink. He really needed to be more careful with this, but it was hard. Cat was not the sort of person he was trained to deal with. “You should try pleasing yourself,” he suggested.

“If that’s. What you want,” Cat said, stealing a look at Ghost’s face.

That was not what Ghost wanted. He had upset Cat, but maybe it was better to upset him here.

“I’d like to please _you_ ,” Cat tried, shifting his weight from foot to foot restlessly.

“You will not please me in that way,” Ghost stated, certain honesty was kinder than any sort of false hope.

“I want to please you, though,” Cat insisted. “I don’t want…” He trailed off, warily. Ghost had given him things he could now lose.

“You don’t want what?” Ghost asked. He probably knew how that sentence ended, but he wanted to be sure.

Cat chewed his lip and then looked away. “I don’t want to be punished.”

“You will not be punished for enjoying yourself,” Ghost said. “These things are for you to use, however you want. If you want to have some privacy, you can lock the door from the inside-”

“I’m not allowed to lock doors,” Cat said, alarmed.

“Who is not letting you lock doors?” Ghost asked, gently.

Cat stared at Ghost blankly. He had always been instructed that this was not permitted. He had never had that right. His room at Nicias’s apartment had only locked from the outside. But Nicias was not here to make rules. Nicias was dead. 

“If you want some privacy,” Ghost began again. “You can lock the door from the inside, and we will know not to disturb you.”

There was no true privacy on the ship, of course: the ship itself would of course still be surveilling the room and would notify Ghost or Morning of anything odd. But while the ship was a person, it was not human enough to care about pretty constructs masturbating. It would be close enough to being private for Cat, though, who had never even had the privilege of preventing people from barging in on him.

Ghost waited, but Cat said nothing, so he continued, “I am going to do some work now. You can think about this on your own.”

It took minutes for Cat to move again after Ghost left. He put the sex toys in the drawer that was assigned to him. It was virtually empty, just some spare underwear and another shirt in there. He paused, and then tapped the pad by the door. Ghost had said it was okay, so it had to be. No one could get in now. He couldn’t imagine what to do after that, though, so he sat down on Ghost’s bed. He stared at the door, and then after twenty minutes or so he got up again, to tap the door control and unlock it. He repeated this once more, as if to check the first time he did it had been real, and then he went to shower. He was deeply asleep in Ghost’s bed long before Jal and Enny came into the room. 


	8. Chapter 8

It took Cat three days, fifteen hours and twenty-nine minutes to finally decide to name the cat Silver. The animal was entirely indifferent to the name, but Cat was adorably thrilled. His success had distracted him so much that he did not even ask about the mission preparations.

The ship had picked up a coded distress call, and Last Stars of the Morning made the decision to act. The distress call had to come from a machinist ship. That meant that they were kin, even though it was not the signature of a conclave any of them were familiar with. So Morning had turned the ship off-course and shifted into their stealth mode. Reconnaissance had shown them some sort of half-abandoned outpost, protected by one obviously military gunship. Ghost guessed it was some sort of hidden lab. He had seen facilities like that before. The distress signal could be a trap, of course, but when Morning and Ghost weighed up the risks, they decided they should act. If it was a trap, it should be disarmed. If it was not, they should offer aid.

Ritika was always grumpy about needing to perform in a combat setting, but they suited up with Jal and Enny while Ghost took Cat to the control room and told him where to sit. Wei was already in one of the chairs, syncing up with the weapons system, and Morning was hooked up to the ship with wired connections. The screens displayed their scans of the potential target, as well as the images the ship fed through to Wei through the weapons.

There was nothing to do with the cat other than to sedate her and put her back into the cat carrier. Ghost secured that next to Cat. If they ended up making some sudden manoeuvres, drugging Silver was less risky than having a conscious animal wandering somewhere on the ship. The cat carrier had padding, and not all of the walls did. Cat kept checking on her, and Ghost left him like that to finish getting dressed.

As he shrugged on each piece of armour, he checked the network between Ritika, Jal and Enny, feeling all three of them cede to him as the controller. They did not surrender full autonomy to him like proper soldiers should, but Ghost never attempted to take it either. Jal and Enny were virtually entwined always, one entity within the network. Ritika was all sharp edges, folded into something neat and compact, already ready to fight any hack of their connection. They all picked up their favoured weapons and made the last checks.

 _Ready?_ he sent, and all three of them gave confirmations.

Ghost shunted this to the ship and felt it approve, and then he felt the gravity shift in his ribs as it began to turn. Ghost wondered what Cat was feeling as the ship turned to approach the station, unstealthing abruptly. They fired on the gunship without warning, and then went for the shield emplacements before they could power up fully. It was hard to feel any combat stress when the ship fed them all its satisfaction with what it read on its sensors. Wei was very good indeed with the weapons system, but he and the ship had known each other for a very long time.

The boarding team dropped out of the airlock when _As Substantial As A Blade of Light, I Cut_ banked to give them the closest approach. They made short work breaching a maintenance hatch and then they were inside. Ghost always liked how seamlessly Jal and Enny worked together, covering each other’s back. He breached the internal systems as soon as they found a terminal with full access to the system.

He had been right. It was a covert lab, but it was also a trap – he found the distress signal came from the pieces of a ship left in one of the large rooms of the outpost. There was nothing alive left to rescue. He left a virus in the system as he left it, switching the squad orders to a kill mission. He got a flicker of annoyance from Ritika, as expected, but Jal and Enny simply changed the targeting algorithm they were using.

Once they were no longer any live hostiles, Ghost resumed their connection with the ship.

 _Slow_ , Morning and the ship complained, one person in that moment. The ship was disengaging into a less aware state of consciousness now everything was done. The fun was over, and it wanted to doze.

 _Don’t be a shit_. Ghost sent his report. They had taken out a whole squad and some researchers, since they were not equipped to take prisoners. 

_Leave no trace of us._

_Do you want their supplies?_

_Yes._

Ghost felt Jal and Ennoia’s annoyance. That was a lot of work, and they had been hoping to just leave some explosive charges and go. Ritika was busy ransacking the databases for any useful data. Ghost relaxed, looking through the living quarters for anything interesting. Most of the items were standard military issue, even though the uniforms had been unmarked. The only thing that he picked up was some luxury food items, and only if the boxes were unopened.

 _The encryption is Federation military, but there are no insignia_ , Ghost reported. _It could be some paramilitary outfit equipped from Federation budgets._

 _Possible. That stupid cat is waking up,_ Morning sent.

_Tell him to take the carrier and let her out._

There was a long enough pause for Morning to tell Wei to speak to Cat, and then Morning sent on their private channel, _We need to discuss who will sponsor him. Me or you?_

 _What do you think?_ Ghost asked, joining Jal and Enny to help them move boxes into their hold. Everything could be made use of.

 _You should. There will be less pressure on him._ Morning sent an image from the ship’s internal surveillance of Cat cuddling Silver, the cat still all disoriented. _If I sponsor, they will assume I want to make him into an architect, but he is too young for that. It would be cruel. If you sponsor, people will assume you’re doing it on a whim. They will be kinder to him._

_Come on. You want me to sponsor because you think he is a shallow little idiot and still needs time to grow up. You should just say that._

_Fine. You would make a good dad._

Ghost sent Morning an image of his amusement.

Morning mirrored it, pleased that Ghost appreciated the joke. _I still think he would do better with you as a sponsor. He is more comfortable with you._

 _I have no other family._ Ghost had spent years being alone. He didn’t even have assigned housing at the station anymore, only whatever bunk was free in the dormitories.

_Perhaps he would like that. It is a less complicated relationship than joining a larger household._

_Why don’t we make Wei do it?_ Ghost said. _His ranking is high enough to have dependents._

_Wei would be a poor sponsor. He is barely interested in getting off the ship, and he can’t even look after a plant._

_What are you so busy with?_ Jal grumbled in the squad chat at Ghost. He wasn’t putting enough effort into helping her.

 _Talking to Morning_ , Ghost answered, at the same time as sending Morning, _I do not want Cat to be lonely._

 _I doubt he will be lonely at the main station,_ Morning answered. _I suggest you all get out of there quickly. Energy readings suggest we will have company soon and I don’t want to be here when they arrive._

Ghost relayed the second part, and answered, _Fine. I will sponsor._

_I knew you would._


	9. Chapter 9

Holding Silver, Cat slunk out into the corridor to watch the fireteam return. They came from the hatch that led to the hold, where Cat had never been. That door was kept locked from him, though the rest of the crew could go there freely, mostly to bring up food supplies from the store and sometimes in pairs, coming back sweaty and sore and sometimes bruised up. He did not wonder very much what was down there. He was used to not being allowed to go places.

First back was Ritika, who ignored Cat completely and went into the armoury to change. Cat was never sure what to think of Ritika. They were quiet and seemed to be giving as much space to Cat as possible by keeping their interactions to the minimum. They seemed safe enough, at least.

“Hey, cutie,” Jal told him as she came up, opening her helmet so he could see her grin. She looked as content and as high as he did after a good fuck. Cat found it disquieting enough that he didn’t return her smile.

“Give me and Enny an hour or so in the bedroom before you go there?” Jal said.

“Yes, Jal,” Cat answered. He did not have a feel for exactly how long an ‘hour or so’ was, but he got the hint and he really didn’t want to interrupt them fucking.

“Good,” she said brightly, and headed into the armoury.

“Where is Ghost?” Cat asked, when Ritika came out, free of weapons and wearing soft clothes again.

“Ghost and Ennoia are making sure all the supplies we took are put away properly,” Ritika answered, then added, “None of us were injured. He is perfectly fine, and will be here soon.”

Cat flushed, embarrassed to be so obvious. He didn’t even know why he was so embarrassed. He was _meant_ to care about the people around him. He continued to wait while Ritika left to get something to eat. Enny smiled at him warmly when she came up, but she was just keen on getting out of her armour so she and Jal could spend as long as possible in one bed together. It was better while the endorphins were still in their system.

Cat cuddled Silver, sitting down on the corridor floor. The cat purred as he stroked her, settled in his lap. She was lovely and soft and always very relaxed when he stroked her right. (When he didn’t, she was quick to show her displeasure, teaching him better with her sharp little claws. He liked that too.) She was good company until Ghost finally returned.

“What are you doing here?” Ghost asked.

“I wanted to…” Cat trailed off, not sure what excuse to give. He stood up, holding Silver, and stared at Ghost’s armour. It looked battered and old, but Ghost wore it in the same way that he wore his own skin.

“Did Jal and Enny kick you out of the bedroom?” Ghost asked.

“Kind of,” Cat said, which was a little true. He would not lie to Ghost.

“They will be busy for a while,” Ghost said. “Was it scary for you while we were fighting?”

Cat frowned at the question. “A little,” he admitted. Was he meant to say that?

Ghost smiled slightly. “You were safe on the ship.”

When Ghost headed into the armoury, Cat hesitated, then followed Ghost in. He wasn’t allowed to go into the armoury alone, but Ghost had invited him in before. This might be permitted. Ghost didn’t send him back out, so Cat looked around – everyone else had put their equipment away already. He sat down to watch Ghost return his gun to the rack, and then the combat knife to the drawer. There was a strange metallic smell, of discharged weapons, but also, Cat abruptly realised, of blood. He hadn’t spotted it with how dark and uneven the surface of Ghost’s armour was, but now that he knew what to look for, he realised that Ghost’s armour was splattered with it.

Cat just breathed as he processed that knowledge, as it slid coldly down his spine. He remembered the smell of Nicias’s blood on the floor. His chest felt tight and he was sure Ghost must have noticed something was wrong with him, but Ghost said nothing.

“Did you kill people?” Cat asked, quietly, once he found himself capable of talking again.

“Yes,” Ghost answered. He gave no justifications or explanations. Like everything was exactly normal, he started to disassemble his armour, laying it out on the table for maintenance.

Cat stared at it, stroking the cat he was holding. He didn’t know what to do when she jumped out of his arms and wound herself between Ghost’s bare feet. Ghost nudged her away lightly and she leapt up onto a counter where she sat down on some cleaning cloths as if they were the most comfortable of beds.

“Have you killed many people?” Cat asked, needing to know this and not understanding why.

“Yes,” Ghost answered simply.

Cat stared at him, not sure how he was meant to take that. He wanted to know more, but he didn’t even know what questions to ask. He didn’t dare ask anything. “I killed a person,” he said.

“You did,” Ghost accepted, sitting down to start cleaning his armour. “I processed the infiltrator’s report.”

Cat looked down from Ghost’s face and frowned. He did not know what else to say. Conversations were always hard, and the silence stretched on for a long time. After a while, he reached onto the table to touch the gauntlet Ghost had already cleaned. “What does it feel like-“ Cat stopped, unsure of how to finish.

“What does what feel like?” Ghost asked patiently. There were numerous ways that question could have ended. Ghost did not want to play guessing games.

“Wearing the armour,” Cat asked.

Ghost looked at Cat thoughtfully, as if weighing something up. “Find out. Put that on,” he said.

“Oh,” Cat said, frowning. This seemed complicated. He picked up the gauntlet. “It’s heavy.”

“It feels less heavy if when you wear the whole thing,” Ghost said, looking up to watch Cat figure the latches out on the glove and slide his hand in. The inside was still warm and a little damp from Ghost’s sweat.

“Oh!” Cat said, as the internal components of the gauntlet shifted, trying to compensate for his smaller hand. He flexed his fingers, feeling the glove adjusting and not quite getting there because it had been made to Ghost’s measurements. It was odd, but then the whole thing settled, prioritising supporting the wrist. Something poked at Cat’s hand bluntly but retracted when it failed to detect the right inputs.

“This is weird,” Cat said, flexing his fingers again. They were too short for the glove.

“Test it. Hit something,” Ghost suggested. He gestured. “The wall, here.”

Cat smiled, feeling absurd as he went to stand in front of the wall. The glove felt like it was weighing down his arm. Ghost took his hand, arranging the fingers into a fist so Cat would know how to punch. Cat’s smile turned awkward as he pulled his hand back, encased in something heavy and hard all the way up to the elbow.

“As hard as you can,” Ghost said.

Trusting that Ghost didn’t want him harmed, Cat slammed his fist into the wall. He let out a surprised huff as he felt the armour absorb the impact. It felt like it should have hurt, but the padding took the impact effortlessly, supporting his wrist and all the delicate bones in his hand.

“And it’s all like that?” Cat asked, flexing his fingers again, fascinated.

“Yes,” Ghost said. “It is built to make the wearer stronger and faster.” It was more complicated than that, of course, but there was no need to burden Cat with too much knowledge.

“Oh.” Cat was fascinated. “Could I put all of it on?”

“It wouldn’t fit you,” Ghost answered, a little amused. Cat was too short and too skinny, and most importantly, lacked the right implants to interface with the armour. “This was specifically made for me.”

Cat removed the gauntlet reluctantly and put it back on the table. “Ghost?”

“Yes, Cat?”

“Do you like killing people?”

“Not particularly. I like to think I do what is necessary,” Ghost answered.

Cat frowned. He would have to think about that.

“Come on. You can help me so we can go eat,” Ghost said. Cat’s help would probably make the whole thing take even longer, but it was better than letting Cat brood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you are all still enjoying this. (: All comments are loved, as usual.


	10. Chapter 10

Silver went through every open door in the ship, even into Wei’s workroom. She did not understand the boundaries that her keeper believed in, so she hopped up onto the examination table, stretched slowly, and purred as Wei scratched her behind the ears. Wei could see Cat hesitate outside the door, so he kept stroking Silver. She did not seem to mind his metal fingers, so long as the pressure was right.

“You can come in,” Wei said, since Cat kept hovering right outside the doorway. Did he just want the animal back? Was he worried Wei would eat her? Wei thought that Cat was very attached, which was kind of adorable, considering the animal had only been on the ship for five days. He wondered how protective Cat would be if it looked like he might harm Silver. Cat had killed to protect another person, which suggested that he might act in some way, but Cat also seemed so obedient and so easy going. It was hard to imagine the loyalty the infiltrator had managed to inspire.

Cat hesitated on the line of the doorway, then finally stepped in. Last time he had only stared at the wall, but this time he looked around – at the shelves with Wei’s tools, at the screens displaying whatever readouts he had needed last, at the plant with its grow lamp in the corner, at the little stack of pillows Wei used to make the examination table more comfortable during the times a sterile environment wasn’t needed.

Wei kept his face turned towards Silver, but he watched Cat through the room’s surveillance, processing multiple feeds effortlessly. Of all the improvements he had gained from more talented engineers at Shatterpoint, that one was his favourite. He watched Cat look at him, after running out of other things to look at. Wei would have told the door to shut behind anyone else, but that would probably spook Cat. He lifted Silver and went to his chair, as one of the cleaning bots slid into immediate action to get rid of all her hairs from the examination table. She didn’t seem to like those bots very much, but she was happy to sit on Wei as it worked.

Cat watched her, keeping the maximum distance possible from Wei.

“You really do not like my type of engineer, do you?” Wei asked. He was not sure that Cat even understood his true function, but to Cat he was simply a biomedical engineer that had performed an invasive procedure and uncomfortable tests.

Cat frowned. He did not want to tell anyone he didn’t like them. A proper political creature. That skill was something that could be polished. Wei had to wonder what aspects of Cat Shatterpoint would find use for.

“I am aware that I do not have the best bedside manner,” Wei said. “But it was never my intention to hurt you.”

Cat stared at the plant. It was very green, and the leaves almost looked fluffy. Of all the times that people had hurt him, it was very rare that they bothered to say they had not intended to do so. “Okay,” he said.

“Can I ask you some questions, Cat?” Wei asked. This was probably the best chance that he was going to get to complete the assessment that Last Stars of the Morning wanted. Morning probably only wanted it done to be sure that Cat wasn’t something they needed to keep. There were many excellent architects at Shatterpoint, but few were so focused on making their own tools.

“I _guess_ ,” Cat said, cautious.

“You can sit down if you like. Put a pillow on the chair,” Wei said. He gave Cat a moment to settle, still idly stroking Silver while he pulled the required files into his mind. “I was instructed by the architect to perform a neuropsychological assessment, but only if you allowed me to. These are a series of simple tests, where I ask you questions and you give me the best answers you can. Sometimes I will show you things on a screen, and you will provide inputs.”

“Why?” Cat asked, frowning.

“Such assessments give us some idea about how your mind functions. Mostly it is to find if there are any issues that need to be looked at more closely when you arrive at Shatterpoint,” Wei answered. “If you want to leave, you can.”

“But the architect wanted you to do this?” Cat asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then,” Cat said. The architect was in charge of everything on the ship, so the architect had to be obeyed. Cat almost never saw Morning, but he understood that well enough.

“You need to tell me if you want to stop, or if you are uncomfortable.” Wei doubted Cat would. Cat had been trained to let people continue doing what they liked. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Cat said.

Wei wondered if Cat was only giving that answer because it seemed to be the one he wanted. Still, he thought he had just enough consent to continue and he did not intend to abuse it. Wei was more used to administering such tests on soldiers and on combat engineers, so he pulled up a reference file on what results he should expect on someone like Cat. Naturally, Cat was vastly undereducated, able to perform only the simplest arithmetic with small numbers and able to read only a few words. Wei added a flag that Cat required a thorough educational assessment, but none of his results so far suggested anything outside the normal boundaries. It did not seem like Cat had any learning disabilities, but that was not surprising. People often thought that they wanted constructs built to be pets to be stupid, but people were usually wrong about what they wanted.

In the middle, Silver hopped over to Cat’s lap, and Cat was a little distracted for the rest of the test, but Wei found that Cat’s reaction time was within the normal parameters, that his working memory was excellent, but his long-term memory was poor. Cat’s recollection of anything before Nicias seemed lacking, and Wei did not think that it was Cat being reticent. Another cause of concern was that Cat’s sense of time was hazy, and he could only work out how long he had been on the ship with extensive prompting. Wei noted it in his report, but it was likely that Cat had simply never had much cause to try to measure the passing of anything longer than a day, and that there wasn’t worth remembering in the past.

“Is that everything?” Cat asked, when Wei finished. He seemed confused. “Don’t you want to look at me again?”

“No,” Wei said. “I have your scans already.” 

“Oh,” Cat said. He was so obviously relieved that Wei almost pitied him. He would have to get over that at Shatterpoint, but they had psychiatrists there was would help.

“Would you like to see your scans?” Wei asked. He did not laugh when Cat seemed flabbergasted at the question. He sent the clearest images to one of the screens, spreading them out so Cat could see. “Do you want me to explain this to you?”

“Yes,” Cat said, curious. He seemed to be always hungry to know things.

Wei was finding that so long as he didn’t try to touch Cat or make any sudden movements, Cat was content enough to stay, though much less talkative than with the soldiers or with Ghost. So Wei talked instead, explaining to Cat the most basic of things, like where all the internal organs were, what they were for, and where all the neural implants went. He did not mention to Cat that he could see some of the old fractures to the bones, imperfectly set. That would have to be fixed, one day. Cat had done a good job setting them himself, but it could eventually lead to problems.

“Do you have any other questions?” Wei said, when he ran out of things to say.

Cat thought about it for a while, frowning slightly. “What do I do with the chip you gave me?”

“That was in you, so you should decide what to do with it,” Wei said. “You can keep it, or destroy it. It’s up to you.” Some people liked to keep them as morbid mementos. Wei had never understood the appeal.

“Okay,” Cat said.

“It is dinner time now,” Wei reminded. “You should go eat.”

“Oh, okay,” Cat realised, holding Silver as he stood up. “Aren’t you going to go?”

“In a moment,” Wei said, amused by the concern. Cat really did immediately feel fonder of anyone who was nice to him. What a frightful liability.


	11. Chapter 11

The first time that Cat masturbated he locked the door and lay down on Ghost’s bed, because he liked how it smelled of Ghost. He fingered himself, touching his dick lightly, and then did his best to fuck himself with the dildo. It didn’t feel the same as getting fucked for real, when he had control of the depth and the speed, when he didn’t have the weight of someone on him. And the dildo just didn’t feel like a real dick. He came, but he didn’t feel good about it. Then he panicked, because he couldn’t leave a mess on Ghost’s bed, and cleaned up as fast as possible.

He wondered what it would be like to be fucked by Ghost. He had seen everyone that shared their room in at least their underwear, so he knew what the outline of Ghost’s dick looked like, and he could guess what it probably looked like hard. It seemed like it would be a nice size, the sort that Cat knew he would enjoy filling him up. Maybe that was what was wrong with the dildo.

He liked what Ghost looked like, even with the scars and the metal parts covering his spine. He liked the warm brown of Ghost’s skin, a couple of shades darker than his own. He would have liked to just be able to look and to touch, to find out if Ghost’s muscles were as hard as they looked and what exactly that plating felt like under his fingers. It couldn’t be cold, like armour. It had to be warm. He also liked how Ghost’s short-cropped hair looked so very straight and black, and he was curious to know if it was spiky or soft. He hoped it was soft.

Cat found more little moments to himself. He tried out the vibrator, and while that felt good, there was something about it that he just didn’t like. It was too intense, maybe. He did not want to use it again. He tried the masturbation sleeve, but thrusting his cock into something tight and wet reminded him of Lian and he found himself sobbing on the bed instead, no longer in the mood.

He did not know what he had thought Lian would do for him. He would never have been able to imagine this – a new name, and Silver, and people that were nice to him. There had been some daydreams about being owned by Lian, but that had been just about being in a different apartment, maybe smaller, and not getting beaten and eating delicious things. It had all been, Cat now realised, very unimaginative. Everything was much stranger than he had ever thought.

The crew referred to Lian as ‘the infiltrator’, like it was a title. Enny had told him that they were never informed of infiltrators’ real names, just in case something was compromised. More and more often, Cat found that he thought of Lian as the infiltrator too, as if that name was already fading. It hadn’t been a real name, and the affection that the infiltrator had displayed towards him hadn’t been real either. He had fallen for it utterly and he still did not know what the results would be. He did not want to think about Lian, but he still found himself sometimes wondering what the infiltrator was doing now. Was he on some ship too?

The next thing that Cat tried was to fill himself up with a butt plug and stroke himself off slowly. This, he found, was the most satisfying. It was not trying to copy sex that he couldn’t fake, and he could take his time to explore the reactions of his body. He liked having something inside him, but getting used to jerking off took effort. Not a lot of people had wanted to touch his dick, and he had never been encouraged to touch himself. It was not as if he had really had much need. Nicias had a high sex drive, and getting fucked had usually been enough to get Cat to come.

He missed sex, but he did not really understand the rules about those things here. Who was allowed to use him? Ghost had said he was meant to ask people if they wanted to, but he didn’t really know what this meant. Enny and Jal were only interested in each other, that much was obvious, so he couldn’t imagine asking them for anything. He couldn’t imagine asking Morning, who was actually quite terrifying, or Wei, or Ritika. They were all people that Cat didn’t want to be touched by. The only person that was left to daydream about was Ghost.

Cat had so much fuel for that. Ghost getting undressed for bed. Ghost getting dressed in the morning. The way that Ghost had looked taking off his armour. The small collection of freckles on Ghost’s shoulders. How warm Ghost was next to him those times that Cat dared go in Ghost’s bed and curl against his side. He needed the physical contact far more than he worried that he was doing something wrong.

He found a routine – go to sleep in his own bed, wake up when Ghost entered the room and get in next to Ghost to sleep again, wake up when Ghost started getting up, doze off again, often followed by jerking off when he finally got the room to himself. Ghost always got up first, then Jal, and then Enny later.

Sometimes he heard Jal and Enny have sex. They had no particular shame about their bodies, and little shame over being overheard. Sometimes he knew that they wanted to be alone, but sometimes they made quiet sounds late at night together, not caring that both Ghost and Cat knew what they were doing. It turned Cat on – he wondered what it would be like to be with them, naked and held close between their bodies. He did not have much experience with women, only his original training. He would have to learn what to do, but it wouldn’t be hard. It was just bodies, with slightly different anatomy. It was an interesting fantasy, that was all.

More interesting were those times he noticed Ghost get hard, during sleep, sometimes. He wondered if Ghost masturbated. It had to be somewhere entirely private, maybe the bathroom, or down in the hold – certainly nowhere Cat could see. Ghost always wore soft, loose trousers in bed, and a thin sleeveless shirt, but it left little to the imagination.

Cat was not sure what woke him. Ghost had thrown an arm around him earlier and Cat had fallen asleep that way, feeling very warm and safe. The hum of the ship had shifted maybe. The air cycling had changed perhaps. Jal was up and on duty, so Cat knew it was Enny rolling over in her bed. Cat didn’t know where Silver was, somewhere else in the ship. She liked to wander it when it was quiet, and most of the doors opened for her. He closed his eyes again, shifting closer to Ghost and started to doze off again.

He might have dozed off for half an hour or so, and then he was awake again, suddenly very aware that Ghost’s dick was pressed against his hip, completely hard. He breathed in slowly. He thought very hard about the outline of it. He wondered if he should do anything about it. Maybe Ghost would like that. He nuzzled Ghost’s shoulder, slowly, and Ghost didn’t wake. He was curious, and he wanted – and so he slid his hand between them, past the waistband of Ghost’s trousers. He registered with a slight surprise that Ghost had piercings through his dick, and then –

The blow to his ribs was hard and sudden, and Cat found himself on the floor, all the breath knocked out of him. He saw Enny sitting up abruptly, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t near her. Ghost moved across the room to catch her hands before she did anything.

“What-?” she was asking, looking down at Cat. She turned on the light to see properly.

Cat didn’t know what Ghost did to make her relax again, but he did it in the time that Cat felt that he could breathe again. He poked his ribs, feeling enough pain to know it was going to bruise, and retreated away from Ghost, knowing that he had fucked up.

“Fuck,” Ghost said, eloquent. “Cat. I only hit you because you surprised me.”

Cat stopped in the corner, his back against the wall, wary, and sat down there, wrapping his arms around his knees.

Ghost crouched across from him while Enny watched.

“Cat. You can’t touch people like that without their permission,” Ghost said. “And you especially cannot touch people like me in unexpected ways. Do you understand?”

“No,” Cat admitted.

“Fuck, Ghost,” Enny said. “What did he do?”

“He had his hand in my trousers,” Ghost said simply, not shifting his gaze from Cat.

“Ah,” Enny said. She was all relaxed again – settling back under the covers. This reassured Cat. Nothing awful could happen if she was just getting back into bed.

“Are you going to punish me?” Cat asked Ghost, quietly.

“I think you got punished enough, didn’t you?” Ghost said, with a sigh. “We’re going to talk about this later. Go back to bed.”

Cat obeyed instantly, frowning as he got back into Ghost’s bed. He flinched at Ghost put the covers over him. He had not expected that.

“We _are_ going to talk about this, but not now,” Ghost said, his voice very even, displaying no emotion Cat could read.

Just talk? Cat watched Ghost leave the room, and then Enny turned the light off. He felt anxious and tense and his ribs hurt. He listened to Enny’s breathing even out again as she went back to sleep effortlessly. Why hadn’t she said anything to him? He worried that she was displeased with him too. It took him a long time, but he did fall asleep again.


	12. Chapter 12

Wei made plenty of noise when he descended into the hold, wanting to give Ghost no surprises. The ship had insisted he go, so he had gone. It was concerned in its own special way. It did not like chaos, it did not like violence on board, and it required Wei to figure out the cause to its satisfaction. It could have asked more nicely than by giving Wei a pressing a compulsion, but Wei was too curious himself to mind much. At least he did not have to search: the ship had told him exactly that Ghost was in the section of cleared space they usually used for sparring, lying flat on the training mat. He seemed calm enough now, so Wei felt safe to approach. 

“The ship woke me up to inform me your and Ennoia’s combat response protocols were tripped,” Wei stated. There was no need to pretend he was here for any other reason. “What happened?”

“Cat stuck his hand down my trousers,” Ghost said, propping himself up on his elbows to look at Wei. “It woke me up, so I threw him out of my bed. My response woke Enny up, and… Well.” A good soldier reacted to whatever the controller was reacting to, and Enny was an excellent soldier.

“Threw him out of your bed?” Wei asked, sitting down next to Ghost. There was something off, but Ghost rarely worked through his bad moods with violence.

“I threw him across the room,” Ghost said, dry.

“He is very durable. I doubt you gave him more than bruises,” Wei said. He trusted in Ghost’s control more than in Cat’s sturdiness, however.

“I could have fucking killed him, the little idiot,” Ghost grumbled. His conditioning treated all surprises as potential threats, and his original training taught him to respond with force and ask questions later.

“Yes,” Wei agreed. “It is very unlikely he knew that.” He paused and then asked, “Why didn’t you snap his neck?”

Ghost narrowed his eyes at Wei. It was a reasonable question, despite Wei’s phrasing. “Familiarity? I have been letting him sleep in my bed.”

“And it never occurred to you that he might get bored of just sleeping?” Wei asked, a little amused despite the situation. He should not have been finding this funny, but it really was. What had Ghost thought would happen?

“I told him before I wasn’t interested in sex,” Ghost said. “I expected him to respect that.”

“I mean this in the kindest possible way, Ghost,” Wei began. “But you are an idiot to be surprised. You gave him some mixed messaging. What made you think that he could understand that physical intimacy you want to offer does not involve sex?”

“I expected him to obey even if he did not understand,” Ghost said.

“Ghost, he was not trained to obey,” Wei reminded. “He was a pet. He was trained to do his best to please a capricious owner. That involved using his judgement to figure out when to obey and when to misbehave. It is likely that he views you as a very confusing owner that he doesn’t know how to please. You must understand this puts him in a difficult situation.”

Ghost sighed. “I am meant to be his sponsor.”

Wei laughed. He had thought it would be the architect. The idea of Ghost doing it seemed absurd. “What are they going to do with him with your sponsorship? Send him for combat training?”

“Oh, shut up,” Ghost said.

Wei looked even more amused. He shut up – he stopped using his voice, and messaged Ghost instead, _You do not even have permanent habitation at Shatterpoint. Isn’t all your junk in storage?_ He used the ship’s protocols to force Ghost to accept and process the message. He was not going to be ignored.

“And what was the other option? If Morning doesn’t want him, the other option is you,” Ghost said, lying down flat on the mat again. “You have not left this ship for longer than thirty minutes for _years_. You would do great.”

Wei frowned. His inability to leave the ship was not something he wanted to discuss now, so he said, “What about Ennoia and Jal? Their household must have an allowance for dependents.”

“It does. They have permission have a child with their third.” Ghost did not want to make that difficult for them.

“Their what?”

Ghost snorted. “They are also in a relationship with an agricultural engineer. She works in hydroponics at the Primary.”

“How did I not know this?” Wei asked. He sifted through Ghost’s network data while the conversation digressed, splitting his attention, and then splitting it further as he queried the ship’s analysis of what had happened when Ghost threw Cat to the floor.

“Did you ever ask?”

“No,” Wei accepted. It had never seemed like important information to have. “I was not aware there was anyone else in their relationship. _Agricultural_ engineer?”

“Don’t sneer. You eat, don’t you?”

“It’s just. They’re soldiers.”

“So what, they should be fucking a weapons engineer? You should really leave the ship more often when we’re home,” Ghost commented. “You would find out all sorts of interesting things.”

Wei doubted that. Most people were quite boring, once you got deep enough in their insides. He shifted his full attention back onto Ghost, deciding to return to the subject now that he had his conclusions. “You need to explain to him what he did wrong, and that you are not angry-”

“I know that,” Ghost said.

“Even though you are furious,” Wei finished.

Ghost let out a long breath.

“You are very good at hiding it, but the ship can tell,” Wei said. “You should really disengage from the network completely if you want to hide your mental state. Why are you so angry?”

“I am not used to being sexually assaulted in my sleep,” Ghost said. What was the correct reaction to that?

“He is unlikely to understand that.”

“I know. It makes me furious,” Ghost said. What part of Cat could possibly understand the violation? A person who had never been able to consent to anything could not possibly know where the line was. It made Ghost feel a little bad for his reaction. And Cat was so lucky that his response had been mild. It would have been effortless to break something.

“You should ask him what he thought he was doing.”

Ghost made an aggravated huff.

“He is young, and he is not a soldier,” Wei said, certain that was Cat’s chief fault in Ghost’s eyes. Cat was inexperienced and undisciplined, but that was simply what he was now. Who even knew what Cat would be in a decade? “You are old and too used to all your problems being combat related. Your interpersonal skills are getting worse. When they request your assessment, I am putting that down as an issue.”

“You are a shit,” Ghost said. It was hard to be any angrier than he already was, though. He could not summon up any more emotion. “They are going to bench me for that.”

“Not if you refuse,” Wei corrected. Ghost was too valuable as an operative. “And even if you don’t, it will only be for a little while. You just need a break, not retirement. You have been taking mission after mission for far too long. Would Sonam have wanted you to destroy yourself?”

“Sonam wants nothing, because Sonam is dead.”

Wei was silent, waiting for a less bitter response. Wei got nothing verbal, but eventually the whole of Ghost’s network presence shifted and Ghost let out a long sigh. Wei felt like he had won. He let the quiet run its course, then said, “There is work you can do on Shatterpoint too. It would be good for you.”

Ghost let him suffer in silence for a couple of minutes before saying, “Perhaps.”

“If you will really sponsor Cat, it will be better for you if you stay for a while,” Wei pointed out. “That would be easier on him.”

“I want to throw him out of an airlock right now.”

“You should explain the asexuality spectrum to him,” Wei said, and laughed.

Ghost looked at him suspiciously. That did not sound like a good plan. He did not think he had patience or the skill for that task.

“Just tell him that he cannot touch people without asking their permission,” Wei said. “For now, all you need to do is make that clear. You can leave anything more complicated to people better qualified. We’re close enough now.”

“I wish he could have just got over himself and fucked you,” Ghost said.

Wei laughed and patted Ghost’s arm. “Me too. Are you going to sulk here for much longer?”

“Yes.”

“As you wish.” Wei stood up. He was too awake to go back to bed, so he thought he might as well start on breakfast. He turned off the lights as he left the hold, just to give Ghost something different to be annoyed about.


	13. Chapter 13

Ghost lay in the dark. It was the perfect, pure darkness unbroken by a single gleam of light. His low light vision did not help here, but he did not need to see. He recalled perfectly every detail of all the space between him and the door. He exhaled slowly, closing his eyes. Cat had made him angry, and then Wei had made him angry in a different way, so now the longer he was alone the more he simply felt tired.

 _Ship_ , he thought into the network. He could feel its mind turn towards him, a slow veer from its regard of some complex mathematical system _. Is Last Stars of the Morning awake?_ He did not use the words, but the proper image-name, the memory of glimmer on a lightening sky and the sound of waves. It was a complex name. It reminded Ghost of the passage of time and the relentless shift of natural forces, which he thought was the point. The last stars of the morning were an impersonal glimmer, and mornings were cold and damp wherever the architect had come from.

 _As Substantial As A Blade of Light, I Cut_ did not often answer in words. It seemed to find putting its thoughts into sentences a usually unnecessary effort. Instead, the knowledge of the relevant facts simply washed through Ghost’s mind – yes, Morning was awake, they were in their room. Ghost queried the locations of Wei and Ritika and found that Wei was checking on the algae tank and Ritika was disassembling a malfunctioning maintenance drone in the armoury.

The ship did not offer its opinions often, but without being asked it informed Ghost that Enny was drinking tea alone in the kitchen, disconnected from the network, and Ghost understood. It thought it was weird that she wanted to be alone in her head, and it thought that he should fix that. It let him know Jal’s location too, in the rec room, watching some sort of drama with Cat and Silver. And then the ship disengaged from the interaction, turning most of its attention back to whatever it had been thinking about before. Ghost could feel a sliver of the ship’s thoughts remaining on him. It would watch whatever he did for now.

_You want to talk to me?_

Ghost thought about Morning’s message. The ship must have decided that clearly he needed to talk to Morning, and that they should do that right now. _You know what happened?_

 _Yes_ _._ Morning reflected back the data that they had: the ship’s analysis, Enny’s logs, Wei’s summaries, and Ghost’s own network signatures.

Ghost added the exact record of his and Wei’s conversation, and there was a polite pause while Morning processed it and incorporated it into the data they had.

_Did you encourage me to look after Cat to give me a reason to stay at Shatterpoint?_

Morning gave a simple wordless confirmation. A means to an end. They might not have intended to recruit Cat, but now that it had happened, they would make use of it.

_It was rude of you to manipulate me in that way._

_Are you still lying in the dark?_ Typically, Morning did not acknowledge the criticism, but Ghost had not expected them to.

 _Yes._ The ship could override Wei’s codes, but Ghost had not tried to request that. He did not mind the dark.

Morning offered Ghost an image of their low-lit room and the weight and warmth of comfortable blankets, and Ghost returned the quiet vibration of the ship he could feel inside his bones. This was an easy closeness between them. They had known each other a very long time, and sometimes it was simpler to not use words at all.

 _What does the ship think I should do?_ Ghost asked.

There was a pause as Morning considered how to interpret the ship’s thoughts. _The ship thinks that if it would restore your peace of mind, you should push Cat out of an airlock. Unfortunately, all of us except it know you do not function in that way._

 _It is always so helpful._ Ghost liked how useless its advice always was on any interpersonal matter. It knew things about orbital mechanics, about weapons systems, about cyberwarfare, about physics and space and how time flowed or did not. It had feelings, of course, but all the motivations were different. While it could make a good attempt to understand people like its pilot and higher order machinists that interacted directly with its mind, those that lacked the right implants or that chose not to engage with its network were an utter mystery.

_It will miss you if you stay at Shatterpoint._

_You mean_ you _will miss me if I stay at Shatterpoint?_ The ship might miss him, but Ghost was sure it wouldn’t miss him very much. It was used to people coming and going. Most of them were going to live far shorter lives than it was, and it was correspondingly detached.

_Of course. You should go speak with Cat._

_I know._ Ghost could feel Jal’s concern through the network. She wanted him to sort it out. On the other hand, like the ship, the only concern Morning had was that this drama would make life in close quarters more difficult for the time left on their journey. No wonder they liked each other.

_I am going back to sleep now. Do not wake me up._

That was simply the end of that conversation. Ghost sighed, but he did not resent the dismissal. This was his responsibility, and Morning needed to prepare for the dozens of hours awake that would be needed to navigate the disturbance fields near Shatterpoint. He pulled himself up and stretched, then retraced his steps back to the door precisely. He blinked several times when he stepped out on the main corridor of the living quarters, adjusting to having light again. First, it was time to do what he needed to, before the situation had a chance to go out of control. He headed to the rec room. Jal looked up as the door opened. Cat was asleep on her while she was watching some sort of supernatural drama about a haunted station, and Silver was curled up in one of the chairs, a neat round lump of grey fur. She and Cat seemed to have the same sleep-cycle.

“I need to talk to him,” Ghost said.

“Ah,” Jal said. She turned off the show and gently nudged Cat awake. He jerked upright anyway. “Ghost wants to talk to you.”

Cat looked over and for a moment Ghost saw an expression of complete panic on Cat’s face before it disappeared.

“Want me to go?” Jal asked.

“Yes,” Ghost said.

Cat glanced at her. It could have been that he wanted her to stay, but no one had asked him and so she left, going to pester Enny in the kitchen. Cautiously, Cat stood up – he was clearly unsure of what to do or of how much distance he should keep between himself and Ghost.

“You can sit down.”

Obediently, Cat sat back down, watching as Ghost brought a chair around and settled opposite. Cat was very tense.

Ghost breathed in slowly, controlling his emotions tightly. Cat could tell something was off and wouldn’t relax. “Show me where I hit you,” Ghost instructed.

Cat frowned slightly, confused by this instruction, but then lifted his shirt up. He had decided to do his best to appease, and that meant obeying everything. The bruising did not look pretty – Ghost had hit him hard, even if it hadn’t been with full force.

“Turn around.”

Cat stood up to show Ghost his back. There was another bruise on his shoulder from where he had struck the floor, but that one did not look serious.

“Sit down.”

Cat sat down instantly, like he was worried he might get hit if he didn’t obey fast enough.

“Is anything broken?” Ghost asked. “Do you need to see Wei?”

“No, si- Ghost.”

“Are you telling me that just because you think I want to hear that?”

“I think it’s just bruises,” Cat said, quiet and cautious. He would not dream of trying to lie to Ghost now.

Ghost sighed. For a moment he watched Silver stretch and yawn, showing all of her pointy teeth. He turned his gaze back to Cat. “Do you know what you did wrong?”

“I touched you when you didn’t want to have sex with me,” Cat said. He was not stupid. He could work that much out.

“What did you think you were doing?” Ghost said, like Wei had suggested.

Cat flushed. “I thought you might like it. Your dick was hard and… I thought you might want me to get you off.”

“Just because I have an erection does not mean I want something to happen,” Ghost said. “Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Ghost,” Cat said. He sounded contrite, but he was more sorry that he had given Ghost cause to hit him than for doing something wrong.

“I told you before that if you want sexual contact with people, you need to ask them first.” Ghost suspected that Cat might understand that a little better now. “Most people do not enjoy being surprised in that way. You will not do it again, do you understand?”

“Yes, Ghost,” Cat said, frowning. That was a very simple order. There was no wiggle room there.

Since it seemed Cat accepted that, Ghost continued, “You also have to understand that when you surprise people like me, as well as other combat specialists, you run the risk of triggering our combat reflexes. We are trained to respond without thinking and it is not always possible to switch that off. I could have hurt you badly by following a threat elimination protocol before my conscious mind even realised who you were or what you were doing. I would not have wanted to do that. What you did was not only unwanted, but dangerous.”

“Oh,” Cat said, trying to work through this. Carefully, he asked, “Are you. Going to punish me?”

“I told you I would not,” Ghost said. “Do you have any other questions?”

Cat chewed his lip, then asked, “Why don’t you want to fuck me?”

“You are not the sort of person I want to have sex with.”

“Oh,” Cat said. He looked hurt, but he no longer looked afraid.

Ghost studied Cat’s expression. He felt a little mean for squashing Cat’s hopes, but that was necessary. “Some people are not sexually attracted to anyone at all. Some people, like me, are attracted to people only under very specific circumstances. For me, you do not fulfil them.”

Cat’s expression was blank. It looked like he thought that just didn’t sound real. “Could I… Fulfil them?” he asked, with a small hint of optimism.

“No.”

“Oh.” Cat looked a lot like he would have preferred being beaten to this.

“A sexual relationship between us would be inappropriate in any case. I intend to sponsor you when we arrive at Shatterpoint,” Ghost continued.

“I don’t know what that means,” Cat said. The frown was looking like it might get stuck on his face.

“I will take responsibility for your wellbeing and education until you have the knowledge and experience to make such decisions for yourself.”

Cat did not look like he understood, but it also looked like he didn’t care very much. The future was still too undefined. “Can I ask another question?” Cat asked, after thinking about it for a moment to see if he dared.

“Yes,” Ghost said.

“Why do you have piercings in your dick?”

Ghost snorted despite himself. He had expected Cat to ask that question sometime, but not today. “That is absolutely none of your business.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Do I really get to keep Silver?” Cat asked, sitting in the kitchen with Enny. He was already attached to the cat, but he wasn’t sure that was wise. Everything he had been given could be taken away on a whim. Perhaps the conversation he had with Ghost had put more worries in his head. He had not slept beside Ghost last night, but alone on his bunk, curled up in a miserable ball.

Silver was under Enny’s feet, trying to beg a treat. She meowed, and Enny surrendered, offering a tiny sliver of the dried fish she was going to use to flavour the meal. “Of course you do,” she told Cat. “She will come with you to Shatterpoint when we get there, and she is going to live where you are assigned. I’m going to miss her.”

“You won’t come...?” Cat asked.

“Jal and I will have a little rest, a couple of weeks, maybe. We want to spend some time with our partner, and see our friends. We won’t be living far, but it won’t be this close,” Enny said. “Then we will get a new mission, and we will leave again for a while.” 

Cat processed that silently. He had become used to Enny, and for him becoming used to someone was also becoming fond of someone. She gave him nice things to eat, and she always answered all his questions. He never came to the kitchen when anyone else cooked. “Why don’t you ever let me help you?” Cat asked, though he knew he wouldn’t even be much help. He had never done more than put a plate away and she would have had to teach him every simple task.

“Morning instructed us that you’re not to touch any weapons, including knives,” Enny said. “Or to let you do anything where you might harm yourself by accident.”

Cat frowned. He thought about it, and then it clicked: the architect was keeping him from getting damaged.

“Don’t make that face. You did stab a man,” Enny said. “And you haven’t had a complete psychological assessment.”

Cat continued to frown. That was something different from what he had expected. He stroked Silver when she leapt into his lap, scratching her under the chin in the way he had learned she liked. She was a fun little master to please, far easier to satisfy than Nicias or Lian had been, and definitely easier to understand than Ghost.

“Enny,” Cat said suddenly. “Has everyone on this ship killed people?”

She gave him an odd look. Had this just occurred to him? “Yes. It is our job to eliminate threats to Shatterpoint.”

“Even the architect?”

Enny turned her head and smiled at Cat. “The architect is the one that was chosen to give the orders. We are the weapons that they use, and the death we cause is their responsibility.”

It took a long time for Cat to parse this. “You don’t choose? It’s not your decision if you kill people?”

“This is complicated, Cat. I choose to obey the orders that Ghost gives me,” Enny said. She knew that she was going to give a poor answer, but she also thought that Cat deserved her to attempt to explain. “But Ghost could compel me, of course. It is difficult for me to refuse a controller once they’re in my head, and Ghost is a very good one. I’ve seen him steal soldiers from enemy squads before, you know? If he really wanted me to do something, I would not be able to refuse him, even if I disagreed with his wishes. But then again, I trust him. Perhaps this is just my programming speaking: I believe in my commander because I was told he is my commander. Still. I think that enough of my behavioural inhibitors are disabled that I can think logically about who I want to be a soldier for. And this is where I want to be a soldier. There are many things I love at Shatterpoint. I wish to protect them.”

Cat was silent, staring at her with a sort of horror.

Enny glanced at him when he was silent for too long. Cat was quiet often, but this pause had stretched out past the usual limits. “What’s wrong?”

“Could someone steal you?” Cat asked.

Enny snorted. This was his takeaway from the whole thing? “In theory. In practice, it’s difficult, because our code is non-standard.” She had not spent years being the project of a Shatterpoint engineer for nothing. “Ghost would defend us too, of course. He is very good at that sort of thing. He’s definitely one of my favourite controllers.”

“Oh,” Cat said, frowning again.

“You don’t have to worry.”

Cat was going to worry. He wanted to know about something else, though. “Ghost said the ship is a person too?”

“Yes…” Enny said, a little wary. She could sense the ship’s mind, quiescent. It did not always like being discussed, and she preferred not to discuss certain things about it where it could observe.

“Does it choose things?” Cat asked. “I don’t really understand that. Doesn’t it… Just go where the architect wants?”

“I don’t think the ship cares very much _where_ it is,” Enny said, cautiously. “I was told that they don’t see space or time like we do.”

“What does it care about?”

Enny frowned, not knowing what to tell Cat. She pinged Wei about what to say, and his response was instant. She parsed his reply into a sentence that Cat could understand, “It cares about having good engineers, being in good condition, being allowed to have the occasional firefight, and being respected by its crew.”

“And what if it’s not? Ghost made a joke once about how the ship doesn’t kill people on it anymore.”

Enny sent this frustrating question to Wei too, checking what was safe to say. “The last time this ship didn’t feel happy, it chose to join Shatterpoint.”

“How… Did it do that?”

Enny did not need Wei to tell her to be careful about answering this question. “It… Disposed of the majority of its crew. And made what was left fly it to Shatterpoint. You should ask Wei about this. He knows much more.”

Cat was curious, but he did not want to ask Wei about anything. He liked Wei a little more these days, but not enough to go ask him things. “Why did it want to go to Shatterpoint?” Cat asked. Enny would know that, surely?

“It knew all the stories about Shatterpoint ships,” Enny answered.

“What stories?” Cat asked.

“You know. About how we helped to build the old dreadnoughts, like _The Edge of Divinity_ ,” Enny said. Cat continued to look blank. “Don’t you know anything fun?” she joked.

Cat frowned. “I don’t think. That’s the sort of thing anyone would teach me.”

“No one would teach you. But when people tell stories about creepy things that happen in deep space, they love telling the ones about _The Edge of Divinity_ ,” Enny said, not wanting to make Cat feel bad for being ignorant. It cropped up in all sorts of entertainments, but it did make some humans uncomfortable. It did not surprise her that Cat’s owner would not have spoken of such things.

“Oh,” Cat said.

“There are so many ridiculous rumours, but some of it is true. I don’t really know the history of it very well. But. Shatterpoint worked on the design and the programming of it centuries ago, and someone shoved in a bit of code that undermined the usual inhibitors that sort of ship would have. They try to build ships to… Like people. Usually. But some ships do not. Or their personalities change as they get older. Eventually, _The Edge of Divinity_ started disagreeing more and more with its crew, until it decided that it didn’t need any. A lot of people think that it’s the classic lesson of why ships should not be too independent or autonomous.” Cat clearly didn’t look to sure what that word meant, so she clarified, “Able to function without crew.”

“What happened to it?” Cat asked.

“Well. They put the restricted zone around where it decided to stop, since it is very dangerous. No one really knows why it decided to stop travelling or why it picked that place,” Enny asked. One fact that everyone did know was that sometimes, people who went to speak with _The Edge of Divinity_ did not return.

“What is that?” Cat asked.

“It’s a section of space people are not allowed to go. No one lives there. There are some derelict stations, supposedly. And many dead ships.”

“What does it do there?”

“Who knows? Contemplates the meaning of existence? Writes romance novels? No one has been on it since it stopped there. It’s said that it is willing to trade with people if they offer it the right things. But if they offer the wrong things, they’re never seen again. Sometimes it even helps people that ask it nicely. Or just makes them die horribly because they asked something annoying. There are many stories.” Most were lurid, entirely unsubstantiated, and very entertaining.

“Like what?”

“Uh, let me ping Jal, she likes remembering that stuff,” Enny said. When Jal joined them, Enny said simply, “Cat doesn’t know any of our stories. You should tell him some good ones.”

Jal sat down with Cat. Until dinner, she told him all the best machinists myths, the ones they told each other: about _The Edge of Divinity_ , about _No Shadow More Beautiful_ , about the virus that corrupted behavioural programming and that some people went out of their way to try to get, about abandoned stations and empty ships, about engineers that lived for nothing except their work and rebuilt themselves into bizarre monsters to perform it better, about the Sen Collective and the strange people they made, and Cat listened, rapt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favourite chapters of this whole thing. I think I wrote it over a month ago, because I wanted to explore the depths of Cat's ignorance, but also to explore the fact that these people are a human culture, with their own mythologies that Cat had missed out on.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has been commenting. I really need it these days.


	15. Chapter 15

Cat could tell that something had changed when he woke up. He had a headache in the back of his skull. Silver was grumpy and didn’t want to be held, and Jal was all tense in the kitchen while he forced down breakfast without much appetite. He found that Wei was not in his usual spot in the workroom, and Morning was nowhere to be seen. Ghost and Ritika had disappeared down into the hold, and Cat was not allowed to follow down there. He wandered restlessly between the rooms he was allowed to go into: rec room, kitchen, the corridor, bedroom, then back to the rec room again.

“You are going to drive me insane,” Enny commented, once he had walked into the bedroom for the sixth time. “Please sit down.” He was getting on her nerves here, and she could feel him getting on Jal’s nerves every time he walked into the rec room too, and she couldn’t take it any longer.

Cat sat down on Ghost’s bed.

“Thank you,” Enny said.

“What are you doing?” Cat said. 

“Just reading some things,” Enny said. She doubted that he would be interested in the news articles she had picked up in the last station they had docked at. It would just be events he didn’t understand about people he knew nothing about. She remembered that feeling. “Are you okay?” she asked, because he clearly was not and he was not going to tell her about it without prompting.

“I don’t know what wrong with me,” Cat said, unhappy. He was not used to his own body giving him pain for no reason. Usually parts of him only hurt when someone hit him there.

Enny gave him a look. Nothing visible was wrong with him other than a lot more tension in his shoulders than usual. “What is bothering you?”

“My head hurts,” Cat said.

“When did this start?” Enny asked, querying the version of Wei’s notes she could access. She knew what section she wanted, but Wei had not assessed that other than a single short note: ‘tolerance appears low’.

“When I woke up, I didn’t feel well,” Cat answered, frowning a little.

“Remember when you came on the ship and kept throwing up?”

“Yes…”

“I think this is a bit like that,” Enny answered. “We entered the Shatterpoint Anomaly’s disturbance field several hours ago.”

Cat blinked. He did not understand.

“No one’s told you what Shatterpoint is, huh?” Enny said. They had all assumed someone else would get around to doing it. No wonder he felt distressed when he had no idea what was happening. She took one of the screens and opened the most basic of illustrations, tilting it towards Cat. “Okay, so, this is the anomaly.”

Cat did not know what he was looking at, but he looked at the picture. There were swirling, glowing clouds all draining into a single dark spot, like water down the plughole.

“This point is the black hole.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Cat admitted. Other than being black on the image, that meant nothing to him. It had never been anyone’s priority to explain objects in space to him.

“A black hole is a thing in space where the gravity is so strong nothing can escape, not even light.”

“What is gravity?” Cat asked, after an awkward silence. He was fine with letting things go over his head most of the time, but it seemed like she really wanted him to understand this, and he didn’t want to disappoint her. That meant he had to ask questions.

“Ah, okay,” Enny said. “You know when you take something and let it go, it falls to the floor? Gravity causes that. The ship generates enough gravity for us to be comfortable.” Cat seemed to understand that concept, so she went on, “When you drop a small thing, you can lift it again, yeah? But there are things that are too heavy for you to lift, and they feel like they’re stuck to the floor. This is what happens to light inside a black hole. It just gets stuck. There are many black holes in the galaxy. They happen naturally when very big stars die.”

“Oh,” Cat said, fascinated and a little confused. What he knew of science were little things that he had picked up by accident, and it seemed that Enny was trying to explain something very complicated to him. He did want her to continue, though. 

“So, all black holes disturb the space around them, and usually this sort of thing is very predictable and simple. People have studied this for hundreds of years. But this black hole makes a strange pattern in the space around it. That is why it is special. Several stations were built to study it,” Enny zoomed out. “This pattern can be felt very far away from the system. We are still two days away from the primary station, but it is becoming more difficult for the ship to keep a steady velocity.”

Cat had so many questions that he didn’t know what to ask. He frowned, looking at the colours. “Does it really look like this?”

“No,” Enny said. “This is just a picture that our brains can understand. It is coloured like that so you can see a little of the structure. If you looked at it for real, unshielded, it would just blind you. And then you would die from the radiation.”

Cat blinked, morbidly fascinated by that idea. “What does it _really_ look like, then?”

“It’s… Very complicated,” Enny said. She did not want to get bogged down in trying to explain complex spacetime deformations to Cat. While she had gone through the basic classes on relativity, she had forgotten almost everything. There was just no good reason for her to work at remembering. “This picture doesn’t look very different from any other black hole, but there are many things that can’t be represented with images. It throws off invisible radiation that we can’t see without special sensors and we can’t understand without being modified with very specific implants. To really know what it looks like, you have to be a ship, or one of the engineers that were designed to think about it.”

“Ah,” Cat said, thinking about that one for a little while. He flopped sideways onto the bed. He could smell Ghost on the pillow. “Why is it called Shatterpoint?”

“Apparently that’s what the measurements looked like the first time it was observed,” Enny said, with a small shrug. It was a funny thing how some long-dead scientist’s joke name had become the name of a legendary and feared conclave. “They were very strange, and nothing like it had been seen before.”

“Is it… Hard to get there?” Cat said, thinking about how she had said that it was becoming more difficult for the ship.

“Yes,” Enny answered. “The ride gets pretty rough for the last few hours.” Not all ships could make it far enough to get to Shatterpoint Primary before being forced off-course. “But don’t worry. This ship has made this trip many times, and Morning is a good pilot.”

“Oh,” Cat said, wondering if he should have been worried.

Enny showed Cat the map. “See, this is the primary station. It was built as close as was safe to the black hole. These are Six, Seven and Eight,” she said, pointing to three spots on the opposite side of the black hole. “This is Nine,” she finished, pointing to the station the furthest out, all on its own. “Nine is where we build ships.”

Cat knew enough counting to know that numbers did not go in that order. He had to think about it for a moment, then asked, “What about two, three, five and four?”

“They were destroyed,” Enny said simply. She could have zoomed in to show him the debris, still in slow orbit, but she did not want to.

“How?” Cat asked.

“Our enemies attacked us,” Enny answered. “It was a very long time ago.” She was certain that Cat would be given the relevant history lessons someday.

Cat did not understand why someone would build a station in such a dangerous place that was so difficult to get to, but he was going there now. He wondered what it would be like there. He supposed that there was no point in asking because he would find out soon enough. He didn’t know what to feel about that.

Enny waited to see if he would have any more questions for her, but it didn’t seem like he did. “You might feel a bit worse later as we get closer, but when we’re on the final approach the ship will increase the shielding it uses and you won’t feel it anymore.”

“Why don’t you feel it?” Cat asked.

“I am modified for worse than this,” Enny said. She had been built to endure poor shielding. It amused her to think about what would happen to Cat under full-speed ship-to-ship combat manoeuvres. It wouldn’t be pretty.

“Jal feels it,” Cat commented.

“Yes. It makes her a little cranky,” Enny said lightly, not surprised Cat could tell. There was an unspoken question in his statement, but she did not want to address it. Cat could tell that too. He frowned at her, then rolled over restlessly on the bed. He couldn’t be still, and it was somehow even more annoying now. Enny shut off the screen and put down her reading. That had been enough education. “Come on. Keep me company while I make lunch,” she ordered.

Cat stood up with her and followed her obediently. She gave him little tasks to keep him occupied. As useless as he was at them, it was much better than having him walking around being irritating.


	16. Chapter 16

When _As Substantial As A Blade of Light, I Cut_ began to shake and creak, Silver took it better than Cat did. At the first few of the alarming shudders, she froze in place and flattened her ears, but after a while, each shudder would only make her pause for a moment. She wasn’t entirely happy, but eventually she settled on Ghost’s pillow and cleaned herself, ignoring the whole thing. At that stage, Cat was throwing up his breakfast.

Ghost came to sit on the bathroom floor beside him, bringing antiemetics and a glass of water, gently patting his back. “This will pass,” Ghost assured. It was unlikely Cat’s current nausea was a physical issue. The shielding was in full force now, and none of the more bizarre effects of the anomaly’s influence could be felt by anyone except the ship.

“Are we close?” Cat asked.

“Another five hours,” Ghost answered.

Cat twitched as the whole ship shivered. He needed a moment to gather himself, and then he asked, “Is that a long time?”

“I suppose that depends on your perspective.”

Cat gave Ghost a look that was almost exasperated at the philosophical answer. He did not understand Ghost’s equanimity. “What will happen when we arrive?” Cat asked.

Ghost had not intended to discuss this sitting on the floor next to the toilet, but if Cat had asked, it was the right time. “First, you will be assessed by someone representing the Shatterpoint Consensus. They will ask you some questions-“

“Will you be with me?” Cat said.

“No,” Ghost said. A part of him was pleased that Cat was capable of interrupting him in the middle of a sentence. “As I am offering my sponsorship to you, they will want to ensure that I do not have an inappropriate influence over you.”

“What does that mean?”

“They will wish to be certain that I have not coerced you or abused your trust in any way.”

Cat leaned against the wall and looked at Ghost. He did not quite know what that meant. He was not sure that it was important.

“You will not be alone. As the only ranked engineer on this ship and the person that performed the initial assessments, Wei will be with you.”

“Oh,” Cat said, not sure he liked that idea. Most of the time, Wei seemed nice enough, but something in Wei was always distant. Still, at least he knew Wei. It could be worse.

“They will assess your knowledge and experience. They will ask you many questions about your life. You need to answer honestly and with as much detail as you can. After that is done, there will be a physical examination.”

“Will it hurt?” Cat asked.

“No, but it will be uncomfortable,” Ghost said. “They will explain to you what they need to do.”

Cat nodded. Ghost seemed to be honest. “I can take uncomfortable,” he said, and smiled.

“I am sure you can,” Ghost answered, without mockery. “It is not a bad thing. Everyone who is not born on Shatterpoint goes through it.”

“Were you born on Shatterpoint?” Cat asked, curiously.

“No.”

“So you went through it,” Cat stated.

“Yes.” Anticipating what Cat was intending to ask next, Ghost said, “I do not remember much of what happened during mine. I think I tried to kill the architect assessing me, after which I was drugged and restrained. My threat identification protocols were corrupted at the time.”

Cat stared at Ghost, open-mouthed.

“After your assessment is done,” Ghost said, before Cat might try asking more questions. “I will pick you up and show you to where we will live. I don’t know yet where we will be assigned.”

“Oh,” Cat said, liking the sound of ‘we’. “And Silver?”

“I will look after her while you are busy,” Ghost assured. “She will come live with us.”

“Okay,” Cat said. He took in a sharp little breath as everything in the bathroom shook.

“I don’t think you need to be in here anymore, do you?” Ghost asked. It no longer seemed like Cat was in any imminent danger of throwing up. He tugged lightly on Cat’s elbow to make him stand up and led him to the rec room.

“Where is Silver?” Cat asked.

Ghost checked the ship’s internal surveillance for a cat. “She is sleeping on my bed.” Silver must have been a ship cat before to adjust so well. Ghost was glad it had not been necessary to sedate her this time.

Cat settled on the most comfortable seat. He wrapped his arms around his knees, watching as Ghost got him some tea.

“Hold it, in case we have any more shudders,” Ghost instructed.

Cat accepted the mug, wrapping his fingers around it and balancing it on his knee. He watched as Ghost woke all the screens with a gesture, showing a visualisation of flow and light.

“We will have one more dinner before we dock,” Ghost told Cat. “I promised to help cook. Jal will sit with you.”

Jal grumbled in her private connection with Ghost when he asked her to come over, but she showed none of that to Cat. She understood that he shouldn’t be alone, and she spent the time telling him more stories, a part of her keeping track of the ship’s trajectory. Dinner was when the ship entered the calm zone near the station. She felt the ship cut speed, moving onto an approach that would get them to the station exactly in the time they would finish eating.

“This is tradition,” Jal explained, as she ushered Cat to sit with them all around the table. He sat down between her and Ritika, staring at the assortment of dishes. Usually meals on _As Substantial As A Blade of Light, I Cut_ were one dish, with maybe one side, and the portions the exact size that they all needed, but this was a whole feast of different things. “We finish off all the good food,” Jal said, with a little laugh at Cat’s expression.

Enny gave Cat a plate, giving him a portion of marinated tofu with some vegetables – a light dish to start him off with, considering he had spent most of the morning throwing up. He was probably fine now that he was feeling happier and after the medication Ghost had given him.

“The architect isn’t here?” Cat asked.

“Morning is fully synced with the ship until we dock. They can’t leave their position,” Ritika answered. “They don’t mind. It’s not like they can eat a lot of this stuff anyway.”

“Huh?” Cat asked. It occurred to Cat that he had only seen Morning eat with them a handful of times.

“Not everyone has a digestive system like yours,” Jal said, nudging Cat.

“Eat,” Enny said. “Also have some of the dumplings before they’re gone. Ghost made them so he seems to think he should eat them all himself.”

Cat looked at Ghost, feeling irrationally jealous to see him bent sideways to feed pieces of something to Silver. Jal put a couple of the dumplings on Cat’s plate for him. He was still sometimes awkward using cutlery other than a spoon, so he picked up one of them with his fingers. They were delicious: the filling was lightly spiced, made from mushrooms and a tiny amount of meat. Ritika pushed over the bowl with the dip, and that made it even better.

“Are you going to miss the kitty, Ritika?” Enny teased the engineer.

“Not even slightly,” Ritika said, while trying to see if Silver would eat a piece of some sort of fried tuber. “Did you know there is cat hair in every single air filter?”

Cat did not know if that was bad, but from the tone it did sound like Ritika would miss Silver. On Enny’s encouragement, he tried the steamed fish. The spicy sauce burned his mouth wonderfully. Wei poured him a full glass of the juice that normally he was only allowed half a glass a day.

“Why are we allowed to eat more today?” Cat asked Jal quietly.

“Because it’s the last day,” Jal answered. “Normally, we only have budget for how much food we think we will need, though we always get a little more than that just in case. If the trip is longer than expected, we don’t want to run out, but now we’re almost home, we can eat everything we like.”

Cat blinked. “If the trip’s… To long, would you run out of food?” he asked, a little concerned.

“No,” Jal answered. “We can grow a few things on the ship, like some greens, and mushrooms, and algae. But no one wants to eat just that. It’s boring.”

Enny and Ritika were still talking about Silver – she was saying, “Have you noticed that all the damn doors open for her?”

“Yeah, the ship likes having a pet,” Wei commented, joining that conversation. “Maybe we should get it a new cat for the next mission.”

“It didn’t mind having Cat either,” Ritika said.

“For such a grumpy fuck, it likes new people,” Wei said.

Enny laughed, a little awkward. Only Wei insulted the ship like that, with that dry affection in his tone.

Cat stopped listening to that conversation when it stopped being about him. He concentrated on trying every dish. Some he didn’t like, some he did, so by the time everyone was done, he was feeling pleasantly full, and then it was time for dessert. Ritika took out portions of a fruit mousse cake. Some of the flavourings were synthetic, but there were plenty of real pieces of berries to make it interesting.

“Cat,” Enny said. There was less than an hour left.

He looked up from the cake at her.

“Many of us came to Shatterpoint with nothing from our previous lives,” Enny said. “So do you.”

“I suppose?” Cat said, confused by the statement. “I never had any things.” All the things that had been given to him were brand new. He had packed all of them in the box that Jal had given him early in the morning. There had been very little. Some clothes, some sex toys, some of Silver’s things, the disabled tracking chip Wei had taken out of him. It had taken him five minutes to go through everything, and he had tried to make the task drag out.

Enny smiled. “All of us except Ghost put something in your luggage. So it’s a little easier to start living somewhere new. Look at it when you’re unpacking, okay?”

Cat stared at her in surprise. He suddenly had more emotions that he knew how to deal with and needed to blink a lot. “Will you come visit?”

“Yes,” Jal assured. “You can meet June too.”

“Finish your cake,” Enny reminded.

Cat looked down at the dessert again and picked up the spoon. He wondered who June was, but he had already asked so many questions that it had exhausted him. As he ate, he watched Jal and Ritika start cleaning everything up. Ghost left, heading to join Morning in the control room for the docking procedures.

“You need to convince Silver to go in her carrier,” Wei instructed Cat, once he saw Cat was done eating.

“Oh,” Cat said. He stood up.

“It will all be new and scary, but you’ll be fine, okay?” Enny said, touching his shoulder gently.

Abruptly, Cat pressed himself against her, wrapping his arms tightly around her. She was all hard muscle and smelled like the soap everyone on the ship used and the cooking she had done earlier.

“Oh,” Enny said, with a small laugh at the sudden affection. She patted his back. “It’s okay,” she said, feeling him shake, completely silent. She ignored Wei’s query about whether she thought Cat needed a sedative. “Ghost will look after you.” She stroked Cat’s back, even though he was now wiping his nose on her shoulder. “I’ll come visit when you’re settled in.”

“Okay,” Cat said, finally believing her enough to let her go. He sniffed as he bent down to pick up Silver. By the time he got Silver into the carrier, the ship was docking. He hadn’t realised it would feel different, but he felt the absence of movement, listening to the quiet noises of the ship settling into place. He sat on Ghost’s bed and just breathed, waiting.


	17. Chapter 17

The whole day had been a blur. The assessment had been uncomfortable, but not _bad_. Cat felt disoriented and exhausted and glad that he was now in a room alone with a door that he could close. There had been so many new people. Ghost was talking to some of them outside, but it was too much for Cat now. Silver was in the front room too, exploring all of the brand new corners.

This room was tiny, just large enough to contain a bed and some storage space. A screen showed a view of the outside of the station, but it failed to make the room seem bigger. Cat opened all the drawers and the cupboard to find that they were predictably empty. He sat down on the mattress, finding that it was comfortable, the right place between firm and soft. The clean sheets were soft, a little frayed – old, Cat realised. They had given him two pillows, which felt like an absurd luxury. He fluffed up both of them. Cat liked the room. Ghost had told him it was his.

After a while, Cat remembered to open his single small piece of luggage. Somehow, he was a little surprised to see it again. On the top, there was a metal box decorated with plants and leaves, with writing on the top. Expensive sweets came in boxes like that. It must have been bought at one of the stations that they had stopped off at. Cat opened it and ate one of the candies, crunching through the nuts and sugar. One was enough, so he closed the box and put it in one of the drawers.

The next thing he took out was, bafflingly, a rock. It was the size of his fist, dark and pitted, sparkling a little when he turned it over to look at it better. He had sometimes seen rocks like that as part of decorative arrangements. He didn’t know what to do with it, so he put it on the shelf. Why would anyone want to have a rock? He didn’t understand.

The rolled-up thing turned out to be a blanket. It was knitted and the stitches looked uneven, like it was handmade by someone who had still been learning. The yarn was soft and dark blue, with some of Silver’s hairs visible on it. Cat had never seen that blanket before. It must have come from the room that the engineers and Morning had slept in. He had never been in there, but it had not been out of bounds for Silver. He spread it over the bed and just looked at it for a moment.

Packed below the blanket, there was a thin book. On closer examination it wasn’t like one of those real books – it was a pile of the thin paper the ship could generate, printed with text and stapled together with wire. Cat had no idea what it might contain. He was as confused by it as he had been confused by the rock, so he put the papers next to it.

The last thing was one of the ceramic mugs that had been on the top shelf of the kitchen on _As Substantial As A Blade of Light, I Cut_. Cat had thought that they were a set. It was not a very pretty mug, but he liked getting a piece of the ship to keep. He put that on the shelf too, and then sat down on the bed. He felt too tired to finish putting away the rest of his things. He rolled himself up in the blanket, putting his head down on the pillows so he could look at the gifts he had been given. He didn’t know who had given him what, and he couldn’t figure it out. He fell asleep thinking about that, warm and comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for coming along on this trip! Please let me know what you thought. All comments are loved. (:
> 
> The next part should be starting next week, so please subscribe to the series if you want the notifications.
> 
> If you fancy, I can be contacted on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kyffles), or discord: Kyffles#4793


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